


matched

by bigspoonnoya



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Character Development, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, Humor, M/M, Matchmaking, Pining, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn, an emma/clueless AU in which they are all super rich and viktor is bad at matchmaking, no prior emma or clueless knowledge required, otayuri is technically a side pairing but has a significant plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-12 05:55:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9058519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigspoonnoya/pseuds/bigspoonnoya
Summary: Viktor Nikiforov considers himself an excellent matchmaker, but there's one love life he can't seem to get right: his own.





	1. project

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i'm writing another multichapter. sue me.
> 
> this is loosely based off of jane austen's emma/the classic 90s romcom CLUELESS. in this alternate universe, viktor & yuuri are old friends, and they and all their acquaintances are filthy rich socialites living in london. it's a slow build romantic comedy, so be ready for PINING and ANTICS out the wazoo.
> 
> because viktor is a terrible matchmaker you may stumble on some weird ships in this fic, including chris/jj, which i feel like i invented for this story because why not. they're both ridiculous. it's going to go terribly! but the endgame ships with storylines will be viktuuri (obviously) and otayuri.
> 
> the teenaged characters have all been aged up to a degree, so no one is under 18. the rating is for sexual humor-- ~~dunno if there will be sexy times in this ultimately! you'll have to find out.~~ there is a sex scene in later chapters... congrats

Viktor Nikiforov, handsome, clever, and rich, with a more-than-comfortable home and a happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and he’d lived nearly twenty-eight years in the world with very little to distress or vex him.

No, it had not been a hard life for Viktor. His parents divorced when he was a toddler, meaning he couldn’t remember the details well enough to be scarred. His father promptly died a year later and left him a sizable fortune maintained by a team of accountants and brokers. The word _billionaire_ was frequently thrown around in reference to Viktor, but he would neither confirm nor deny the excess of his inheritance. He’d reached the tier of wealth where it was in poor taste to talk about one’s finances, and everything he did was (of course) in impeccable taste.

His mother remarried and moved to Italy, leaving him to be raised by his father’s half-brother, who was also raising a granddaughter of his own. At the age of seven, Uncle Yakov took Viktor and Mila from the grandeur of the two-hundred-year-old family estate outside St. Petersburg to the grandeur of a gated luxury complex in Kensington, Bedfords Walk. Here they grew up, attending international schools and flawlessly negotiating their way into the inner circles of London’s elite.

Then Mila met the ballerina.

“But you’re happy for them, right?”

Yuuri Katsuki’s dark eyes bore down on him. Viktor rolled over, burying his face in the settee pillow. “No! I don’t know!”

“It’s not like you’ll never see her again, Viktor,” said Yuuri, twiddling his thumbs.

“Who let you in here, anyway?”

“You texted me to come over.”

“Oh.” Yuuri’s father—called Katsuki-san around Bedfords Walk—was a Japanese businessman who owned something like fifty luxury hotels worldwide. Yuuri had come to London as a teenager and attended the same international school as Viktor a few years behind him, but more importantly, Katsuki-san owned the other penthouse in Bedfords Walk. Yuuri’s apartment sat opposite Viktor’s, across the garden. They could wave at one another from their parlors.

Since they both lacked normal family units—Yuuri’s father was away constantly and the rest of his relatives lived in Japan—Yuuri had become a fixture in the Nikiforov-Feltsman-Babicheva household. After all, there weren’t so many people on par with Viktor in terms of wealth and influence, even in London, but Katsuki was one. He wasn’t exactly fashionable or charming, and he had gone soft around his midsection, yet he made an incredible drunk at parties and had a good heart and thus was pretty well-liked.

And now their families were intertwined. It was through the Katsukis that Mila had met her ballerina, Minako Okukawa.

Viktor flopped on to his back. Yuuri was still standing over him, and his frown smacked of disapproval. Viktor kicked in his direction, accidentally disturbing Makkachin, who’d curled up on the settee with him. “I want to whine about this a little. Don’t make that face at me,” Viktor said, without actually looking up at said face. He let the dog lick his nose instead.

“I thought you were proud that you’d set them up.”

“Genius comes at a price.”

“Uh-huh,” said Yuuri, finally sinking into an armchair. He pulled a magazine off the coffee table and began to flip through it, only half paying attention to Viktor’s plight. “Or maybe it’s time to stop claiming responsibility for their relationship.”

“Why should I do that when I’m the reason they’re together?”

Yuuri stared at him as if waiting for an admission of wrongness, but Viktor wouldn’t budge, because he _had_ been the one to introduce Mila and Minako, knowing from beginning what would happen. Mila had been through a slew of boy- and girlfriends since her teenage years and had matured beyond her age. Minako was older by eight or nine years but maintained the energy of her early twenties. They were both classically trained dancers with good senses of humor. _Perfect fit,_ Viktor had said to himself, the first time he saw them interacting across a room.

Of course, it never occurred to Viktor that if Mila and Minako fell in love, Mila might move to Japan to be with her new partner. Otherwise he would’ve never set the whole thing up.

“All you did was invite them both to a party,” said Yuuri. “Actually, you didn’t—I brought Minako as _my_ plus-one.”

Clearly Yuuri did not understand the intricacies of party planning. “You want to share the credit?”

Yuuri bit his lip, like he sometimes did when he wanted to roll his eyes but didn’t want to offend. “No. No credit necessary.”

“So what’s your complaint!”

“I don’t have one.”

“Good.” Viktor sniffed, and quiet fell between them. Yuuri stared into his lap, making a sad sort of picture, so Viktor resolved not to look at him.

“ _Okay_ ,” came Mila’s voice from the hall. She swept by the parlor, popping her head in to say, “Viktor, Yuuri, come see me off! Move a little faster.” Makkachin leapt off the settee and chased after her; perhaps the dog could read Viktor’s mind.

In the entrance hall she oversaw the doorman taking her luggage downstairs. When she turned to Viktor to say goodbye, she tutted.

“Oh, don’t look so severe. It makes you ugly. You can come see me in Japan, it’s not as if you have anything else to do. Yuuri will take you and be your guide. Won’t you, Yuuri?”

“Of course,” said Yuuri, bowing his head politely.

Viktor had trouble resisting the urge to stomp his feet and say, _but I don’t_ want _you to go, and I don’t_ want _to visit you in Japan_. _I want you to stay here and be young and gay with me forever!_

But he didn’t say that. It would have been in poor taste, and everything Viktor did was (of course) in impeccable taste.

Instead, he smiled broadly. “Travel safe. Eat well. Drink sake.”

“I will,” said Mila, craning her neck. “Where is my grandfather?”

“I’m here.”

Viktor winced at the sight of Yakov entering the hall in his chair. “I would’ve come to get you.” It was better for Yakov to be wheeled than to expend the strength on wheeling himself, according to his doctors, but he frequently and flagrantly disobeyed that rule. Most of the time that Viktor didn’t spend partying, working out, or lazying around in true hedonistic fashion, he spent caring for his elderly uncle and trying to prevent infractions against the medical advice they’d received. 

“You’re too slow, Vitya.”

Viktor glared, and saw Yuuri hiding a smile, and glared harder.

“Goodbye, grandfather,” said Mila. She bent down to kiss each of his cheeks.

“Visit soon. Vitya may become depressed without you.”

“I _won’t_ ,” Viktor snorted, though he could hear that his scoffing wasn’t particularly believable. God, this process made him feel pathetic—he felt his friends and family watching him closer than they did Mila, though it was her who was leaving. Everyone expected him to take it hard and for that reason alone, he insisted on keeping his dignity. He was the most dignified bachelor in London. That would never change. _He_ would never change.

Mila hugged Yuuri goodbye, then moved onto Viktor, kissing his cheek. “Dasvidaniya,” she said, warmth leaking into her voice. She wasn’t a particularly emotional person but in this moment of parting he saw a crack in that exterior. “I’ll message you from Tokyo.”

She bent down to stroke Makkachin a final time, then slipped out the door. With her went all the noise and life of the apartment, Viktor sensed—there would be something hollow about it now.

He felt a touch at his arm, and Yuuri smiled sympathetically at him. “Hey. I’ve got to go to work for a while.” Since finishing university, Yuuri had been working at the London offices of his father’s company. He didn’t go everyday, but often enough that he couldn’t be Viktor’s 24/7 playmate. It was… depressing. “I’ll be back and we can get dinner somewhere. Okay?”

“Okay.” Yuuri gave his arm another squeeze and left. Alone in the entryway, Viktor exhaled, and ran a hand through his hair. Makkachin pawed his leg. “Oh, I know. I haven’t forgotten you.”

“You’ve forgotten me, it seems,” Yakov grunted, and Viktor flinched, because he _had_ forgotten his uncle for a moment. “I need a nap, Vitya. Help me.”

Viktor did, wheeling him down the hall to his room, lifting him into the bed, removing his shoes. “I want you to hire me a new nurse,” Yakov told him confidentially.

“Why are you whispering? The last one quit, there’s no one around to hear you.”

“So hire me a new one. I’m sick of you caring for me.”

“I don’t mind it,” Viktor said quietly. He didn’t think much of having to look after his uncle—Yakov had done the same for him as a child, so it only seemed fair.

“Of course you mind it. You brag about being the world’s richest bachelor. Naturally you resent looking after your old, sick uncle, so hire another nurse.” Yakov reached for the novel on his bedside table and fumbled it; Viktor recovered it for him smoothly. “I want a _Russian_ nurse. I am sick of speaking English.”

“Okay, uncle.”

“When I’m awake I’d like dinner. Send the chef to me.”

“Yes, uncle.”

Viktor shut the door behind him, and leaned back against it briefly, collecting himself. With Yakov asleep, the only sound in the penthouse was Makkachin’s shallow breathing, and the gush of the sigh that escaped Viktor. When they’d bought this place years ago, it only seemed logical to get the biggest, nicest property they could afford: five bedrooms, a lap pool and gymnasium, a game room, high ceilings throughout, located in prime London real estate just a stone’s throw from Hyde Park. Since then they’d updated it with electronic controls for the lights, temperature, and electronics—Viktor liked to have the nicest things, the newest things, the best things. His closet was nearly as large as his bedroom, a fact that Yuuri would often lament, because Yuuri didn’t know how to spend money like Viktor did. Viktor had a gift for luxury.

And he liked to share that gift with his friends. The penthouse had seen many a fabulous party, with he and Mila as the charming hosts; fashion editorials were shot there—once they’d asked Viktor to model; interior design magazines photographed the apartment’s decor. Once he’d surprised Yuuri by inviting him to brunch and then having a personal stylist redo his entire wardrobe over mimosas. Yuuri never accepted a brunch invitation from him again, and the changes had only half-stuck, but it _felt_ like charity.

Now Mila was gone, and Yakov was sick, and Viktor was alone in his perfect apartment.

He had always insisted—bachelor for life! Never settle down for more than a couple of nights! But to him, the lifestyle never meant that he would be alone. His days were full of laughter. He wanted for nothing.

“Come on, Makkachin.” The dog met him with rapt attention. That was something, at least. “Enough wallowing. Let’s go for a walk.”

 

 

 

 

Viktor got immeasurable pleasure from the way heads turned when he entered a party.

Mila had been gone for two days, and he came down with the sickest urge to experience this feeling, so he’d sent one inquiring text to the right person and _bam_ , invitations rained down on him. He selected the bash thrown by the heir to a fleet of Southeast Asian airlines, Phichit Chulanont. Phichit and Yuuri were good friends, meaning Yuuri would likely be at this party and could break up some of the monotony for Viktor if things got dull. Yuuri didn’t frequently indulge in nightlife, but he would be there for Phichit any time of day. Just like he would for Viktor. (And so Viktor wasn’t jealous of Phichit, not even a little—he had no reason to be. None!)

Phichit had rented out a barge for the evening; the party would float down the Thames as the night went on, offering remarkable views of the city at night. Viktor planned to arrive an hour late, just before the boat left the dock, and make his entrance a grand one.

And so he did, smirking at the looks on the faces of Phichit’s guests lining the deck of the ship. He’d donned one of his handsomest suits—hand-tailored, Italian, the price tag unmentionable—and he was nothing short of gorgeous. But beyond his looks they knew who he was. If they hadn’t glimpsed him at another one of these parties, they knew his face from magazines and the financial section of the papers. He felt himself bloating with the attention, absorbing it like a sponge, losing some of his grace to his fullness. Which meant he needed a drink—he plucked a flute of champagne from the nearest waiter’s tray.

“Viktor!”

He fumbled the flute and champagne dribbled down his hand. _Damn_. And to make matters worse, he recognized that voice. Viktor didn’t even fake a smile for Jean-Jacques Leroy, who was charging toward him with open arms.

“Viktor Nikiforov graces us with his presence!” Leroy threw an unwelcome arm around Viktor’s shoulder, and Viktor shrugged out from under it.

“Yes. Well.”

“That is one hell of a suit. Where do I get one of those?”

“I don’t recall.”

“Beautiful night, right?” It _was_ a beautiful night: the boat had begun to move along the Thames, and the lights of London’s most marvelous architecture glittered along the riverbanks. The temperature was comfortably cool for a summer evening, and the sound of a live band drifted up from the hull of the ship, mingling with the musical laughter and conversation on the deck. Phichit had always been good at organizing events, but this evening had a special glow to it.

But Viktor didn’t want to agree with Leroy, so he just shrugged.

Leroy clapped him on the arm, again disturbing his champagne. Leroy had Canadian oil money—Viktor had often wondered, both privately and aloud, what had brought him to London a few months prior from the boonies of Canada, where surely his fortune went further. But everyone knew the answer: he liked parties and people, even when neither welcomed him. “Hey,” said Leroy. “I heard there’s a flat opening up in Bedfords Walk. I was going to take a look—I’d be neighbors with you and Katsuki. How about that?”

“Yuuri,” Viktor said, suddenly. He began to call for Yuuri as loud as he could, drawing stares from other guests. “Yuuri! Katsuki! Where are you?”

Puzzled, Leroy hesitated and then joined in: “Yuuri Katsuki!”

The double wails worked—Viktor caught the flash of blue-framed glasses appearing at the end of the deck. Yuuri wore one of his better suits and tie combinations, one of the ones Viktor had selected for him, thank god. You could never tell if he was going to show up in an unfortunate ensemble—black suit and brown shoes, etc. “Is everything okay?”

“Yuuri,” said Viktor, grabbing his elbow. “J.J. is talking about getting an apartment in Bedfords Walk.” Viktor felt his eyes bulge when he said it—and Yuuri looked him straight in the eye, and _giggled_. “You’re awful,” Viktor whispered harshly.

Yuuri turned to Leroy with a genuine smile. “That’d be great.”

Leory lit up. “Then I’ll look into it! I’m sick of living in a hotel…” He glanced at Viktor and his smile went a little sly. Viktor didn’t want to parse what that meant, so he turned to Yuuri.

“Take me to Phichit. I have to congratulate him on the party.” Yuuri nodded and guided him away from Leroy, who was intercepted by the arrival of a petite brunette woman. He peeked over her head like he wanted to follow Yuuri and Viktor, but didn’t. Thankfully.

“You’re mean to him,” Yuuri murmured, as they wove through the clumps of guests toward the other end of the barge.

“Not _outright_.”

“Subtly mean is still mean, Viktor. He _likes_ you.”

Viktor didn’t like the emphasis Yuuri put on that word, _likes_. “Whatever. If he moves into Bedfords, I’ll never be rid of him.”

Yuuri didn’t have an answer to that. He kept his eyes in front of him. “Phichit’s right over here. I think he said there was someone he wanted you to meet.”

“Don’t you mean someone who wanted to meet me?”

The corner of Yuuri’s mouth turned up, which satisfied Viktor deeply. Yuuri didn’t like to laugh at the expense of others, even when they deserved it, and getting him to play along with Viktor’s (gentle, private) teasing was a complex operation. Viktor considered himself successful if he earned a smile from Yuuri, and a chuckle was like winning the lottery. Unless, of course, Viktor was the butt of the joke, in which case Yuuri’s sense of humor shone bright and unimpeded by his conscience.

Phichit stood out in the sea of his guests—he wore white linen from head to ankle—his shoes were green velvet slippers. That was just like him, never too serious, and Viktor knew of not one person in London’s upper circle who held any ill-will against Phichit. Even his exes seemed to adore him, which was something about him that Viktor _did_ envy—as opposed to his friendship with Yuuri. Viktor watched with a pained smile while the two men exchanged a hug.

“Viktor,” said Phichit, shaking his hand about three or four times more than necessary. “Thank you for coming! I didn’t know if you would—you’re so popular and busy, it means so much to me…” Viktor saw Yuuri trying not to laugh. Undoubtedly he was thinking about all the things that made Viktor “busy”: long baths, abrupt trips to the south of France, personal training appointments.

“I’m happy to be here,” Viktor told Phichit. “It’s a wonderful party. The boat was an excellent idea.”

Phichit seemed to grow two inches with the compliment. “Thank you! A friend of mine, his father owns the boat company—Otabek Altin? You must know him.”

“I do,” said Viktor, with an easy smile. Otabek had been in Viktor’s circle for years, since lower school, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the man in person. Something about him having a real hand in his family’s business and traveling all the time—when he was in London, it was for a day at a time.

“I just saw him in Milan,” said Phichit, excited. “He took me as a guest to his other friend’s apartment for dinner… his name was, um—” Phichit strained to remember. “He’s Russian! I think Otabek said you knew him…”

“Yuri Plisetsky?”

Phichit snapped his fingers. “Yes!”

“My step-brother,” said Viktor smoothly. Phichit’s eyes widened.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine!” Yuuri interrupted, inserting himself between Viktor and Phichit. “Not very many people know that about Yuri and Viktor…”

“I haven’t seen him in years,” Viktor said, trying not to sound too chilly. It wasn’t Phichit’s fault in the slightest. “Last I heard he was modeling?”

“Uh, yes… he’d just had his photograph in Italian _Vogue_. They were beautiful pictures.” Phichit smiled nervously. “You must be proud.”

“Oh, something like that, yes.”

Yuuri gave Phichit a nudge. “Didn’t you want to introduce Viktor…?”

“Introduce? Oh—” Phichit spun around, looking for someone. Viktor looked forward to the change of pace, and tossed Yuuri a wink for thinking to get him out of that conversation. He didn’t like people to see the flaws in his gem-like life. “Chris! Chris, come here!”

 _Chris_ , Viktor mouthed at Yuuri—he hadn’t heard of a Chris, and he had heard of most people who were worth hearing of. Usually introductions came with baggage: before you shook someone’s hand, you knew who they had slept with, or which of their investments went rotten, or what substance had sent them to rehab. But his mind went blank at the sight of the part-blond, doe-eyed man Phichit was dragging toward them. And that begged the question—who the hell was _this_?

“Christophe Giacometti,” Phichit announced, presenting Chris as though he were the prize on some gameshow. Viktor threw Yuuri a puzzled look, hoping to get some kind of quiet explanation, but Yuuri only offered him an reassuring smile. Damn him.

“How do you do,” said Chris. He extended a hand to Viktor, and when they shook, Viktor learned a good few things about him. First of all, he was about as gay as they come. Second, he had no manners whatsoever—one could tell by a handshake—so he hadn’t grown up rich. Third, however, was that he did have some kind of fortune. The watch he wore ran for nothing less than twenty thousand pounds.

Mannerless new money. The Leroy-types were multiplying, apparently.

“You’re Swiss?” Viktor asked. International school in London made for a killer sense of accents.

“Yes! Good ear…” Chris’s eyelashes were a smidgen too long. It was weird.

Phichit poked his head between them. “Chris has just come to London from Paris—we went to school together there! Yuuri and I were trying to think of how he could get to know the city, and we figured, who better to guide him than Viktor.”

“Are you from London?” Chris asked happily. He didn’t wilt at all under Viktor’s gaze, though it was an obviously judgmental look. That gave him some points for confidence.

“St. Petersburg, originally. But I’ve lived here since I was a boy.”

“Viktor can show you a good time around London better than anybody,” Phichit said.

Chris quirked a brow. His eyes flickered up and down Viktor. _Hm_. “Well. I love a good time anywhere. Just point me toward the vodka.”

“Fantastic,” Viktor muttered. A plan had sprung to mind, and already his initial judgment of Chris was fading into distant memory. All he could see now was a _project_. “Yuuri.” He turned to his friend, who’d been quiet all this time. “Could you hunt down a waiter and order us vodkas?”

Yuuri stared blankly at him for a second before he answered, “I’ll get them myself.” An apology stalled in Viktor’s mouth, because he didn’t understand what exactly it was he wanted to apologize for, and by then Yuuri was long gone.

Viktor shrugged it off, and looped his arm through Chris’s. “Come with me. We have so much to talk about.”

 

 

 

 

“You can’t make a project of a person, Viktor.”

“Why not?”

“Because… he’s a person, not a project?”

Viktor gave Yuuri a sour look over the kitchen island. They were sharing a lunch prepared by Viktor’s chef—lemon-pepper salmon. Calorie-counting food. Viktor predicted he would find himself ordering Chinese donuts at one o’clock, driven to self-destruction after too much self-deprivation. “So he’s a person-project. It’s not a problem. I’m attempting to help him.”

Yuuri shook his head. “Why do you think he needs help?”

“Because he has money and no idea what to do with it, and he’s in a new city with very few friends, and—and—” Yuuri regarded him quizzically. “And he admires me greatly,” Viktor finished, sticking his nose in the air.

“I don’t know if ‘admires’ is the right word,” Yuuri said under his breath, but Viktor caught it. He knew the reactions he tended to elicit from both men and women. It was some combination of looks, money, and what he liked to think of as _swagger_ —the _je-ne-sais-quoi_ that catapulted him from rich bachelor to society royalty. Over the years, he’d had countless suitors, and even more secret admirers. Someone had sent him a thousand red roses on Valentine’s Day for the past three years. Kind of creepy, but he knew it was only his mythos. He drew people in.

Rarely had he ever indulged in the offers; if one made oneself too available, one’s desirability would vanish. The privilege of being with Viktor Nikiforov, even for a night, went to few. In fact, in the past year or two, it had gone to no one at all. Christophe Giacometti was no exception to the rule.

“Well, he isn’t getting _that_ , and I want to give him something,” said Viktor, swirling his wine in his glass.

“I just don’t see what’s so bad about him that he needs to be a… project.” Viktor gave Yuuri a stern look across the counter. “What!”

“It’s just all so obvious?His wardrobe, and his flirting, and his manners. You’d be mad not to see it.”

“He seemed perfectly polite to me…”

“You don’t understand because _you’re_ a project too. A project I’ve been banned from working on.”

Yuuri’s mouth hung open for a second as he tried to work through this statement. Then he said, “So this is about me not wanting you to burn half my clothes?”

“Yes—no.” Viktor let out the most exasperated of sighs, throwing his head back. “I’m bored! I did such a good job on Mila’s life that she’s run off with the woman I found for her.”

“You didn’t find—”

“I _did_ , and I’m going to set up Chris too! I’ve already invited him over today. He’s going to be here soon.”

Yuuri put down his fork and sat back, his face going all stony and serious in a way that made Viktor’s heart sink. “Why does a project have to involve setting someone up? Why do you think…”Viktor stared him down, hoping for some eye contact, but Yuuri’s attention was glued to his half-eaten salmon. “If pairing all these people together is supposed to make them happy, then why are _you_ still alone?”

Predictably, Yuuri’s question iced over the conversation. Viktor half expected his mind to race with answers, as it usually did when he was asked a question that called up such a complex web of thoughts and feelings—but instead it went blank. “I…” He pushed his plate away. His appetite had vanished. “I’m not alone, not really.”

“But, you’re not…”

“I have you.” Yuuri winced. What a strange reaction. Viktor added, “And my uncle. And Makkachin.” The dog lifted his head from the kitchen floor at the sound of his name. “And besides, I’m not Mila, or Chris… everyone has different needs.” He threw Yuuri one of his better grins. Hopefully it could convince him. “I’m very happy. Don’t worry.”

Yuuri looked him in the eye, finally, and… sighed. Viktor’s pulse quickened, afraid for a moment he’d start an argument and Viktor would have to defend that last statement. But Yuuri knew to pick his battles with Viktor. He only asked, “How do you know Chris’s needs if you just met him?”

“Intuition, of course. I’ll figure him out as I go.”

“Uh-huh.” Yuuri climbed down from his stool, collecting his and Viktor’s plates.

“The maid will—”

“I’ve got it.”

Viktor watched him carry the dishes to the sink. He turned on the faucet and started rolling up his sleeves, getting ready to wash the plates by hand. Viktor found himself grinning at the picture he made there, standing over the sink, making kissy faces at the dog—like he lived here, and had for a long time, and there was no better place for him to be.

“So who’s Chris’s mystery man?” Yuuri asked, conversational, like a peace offering.

“Oh, I don’t know… someone desperate, who needs to get laid.”

“So J.J.,” said Yuuri, laughing—he’d made a joke, and that was brilliant, but even more brilliant was that he was absolutely right.

Viktor slapped the counter. “Yuuri, you’re a genius.” Yuuri squinted at him, up to his elbows in suds, and squeaked when Viktor swept over to hug him from behind. “Chris and J.J.—think of all they have in common! Like—like they both want to sleep with me.”

“Wanting to sleep with you is not something for two people to have in common—”

“Nonsense, of course it is. They can take turns pretending to be me in bed.” Viktor let go of him, and bounced around the kitchen, fumbling his way through a text message. “And if J.J. gets a boyfriend, he’ll leave me alone. It’s just brilliant.”

“You’re pawning Chris off on J.J.? That’s your plan?”

“Oh, you make it sound so much worse than it is—”

“ _VITYA._ ” They both started at the sound from the wall intercom. “VITYA, COME TO MY ROOM.”

Viktor hit the button to respond to his uncle’s apparently insane yelling. “As I’ve explained, you can speak normally into the speaker, Uncle. I’ll be right there.”

Viktor left Yuuri in the kitchen and went to check on Yakov, who was sitting up in bed, mercilessly smashing the keys of his ancient cellphone. “Vitya.”

“What is it?”

“My student is coming to visit us soon.” He indicated the phone. “He called me. Otabek Altin.”

“Otabek Altin is your _student?_ When did you ever—”

“Insolent Vitya!”

“All right, fine. I’ll have the maid prepare a room. When is he arriving?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know how long he’ll be staying?”

“No.”

Viktor bit back a scream. “Fantastic. An indefinite visit from an old friend. Just what I need right now.”

Yakov dismissed him harshly, and Viktor returned to the kitchen, where Yuuri had finished up the dishes and moved on to wiping down the counters. He did this on occasion to combat his nerves, and had long ignored Viktor’s reminders that they had staff who were paid to keep the flat spotless. Yuuri saw himself as making their jobs a little easier while making himself feel a little better, and Viktor couldn’t argue with that logic. But he could wonder what it was that had Yuuri cleaning on this particular day.

“Well, my uncle apparently knows Otabek Altin, and he’s coming to visit us at some point. Indefinitely, it seems.”

“Oh, that sounds… fun?”

“Does it? Do you remember anything about Otabek Altin?”

Yuuri scratched his head. “Um… he was a little…”

“Severe?”

“… yeah.”

“Well,” Viktor said, with a shrug. “I can fix that. No one is beyond the help of my master match-making skills, Yuuri.”

Yuuri scratched a spot off the counter. “I can think of one person.” The doorbell rang with Chris’s arrival, denying Yuuri the chance to elaborate; Viktor scuttled off to answer it, breathing a sigh of relief.


	2. phase one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't actually have anything to say.

“What do you think is your best physical feature?”

Chris thought about this for a moment. “My body.”

“You can’t say your _entire_ body when I ask your best feature.”

“Then… my ass.”

Viktor slid down in his chair. When he’d decided to begin his project with an assessment of Chris’s strengths and weaknesses, he assumed Chris would be the tiniest bit helpful in identifying them. Instead they were camped out in Viktor’s walk-in closet, Chris admiring himself in the mirrored closet doors. He arrived today dressed like a pool boy, in Bermuda shorts and a white linen shirt open to the middle of his chest, and both items of clothing were two sizes too small, clinging to the aforementioned ass. Viktor did see his point: It _was_ a nice ass, and a nice body overall. He had a raw sex appeal that could be sculpted into something truly incredible, with the right expertise—Viktor’s expertise, to be specific.

“So what are we doing today?” said Chris, pulling his shirt a little more open.

Ah, yes. Here was a place for them to begin. “You should shave your chest if you’re going to do that.”

Chris turned to him in horror, covering his chest protectively, as if Viktor might laser the hair off with his eyes. “ _Shave_?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“No… no, this is my hotness. It’s masculine.”

“You’re not in Paris anymore.”

“No,” Chris insisted, turning back to his reflection with a pout. “Just because _you_ don’t like hairy guys…”

Viktor’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. He didn’t care to explain to Chris that there was _good_ hairy and _bad_ hairy and when the color of your body hair didn’t match the color of the hair on your head, good hairy was out of reach. “How long do you intend to keep your hair like that?” he asked instead, hoping to broach the topic from a different angle.

“As long as I’m young and hot.”

Judging by the little hip thrust he did to punctuate this statement, Viktor wagered that Chris did not see that period ending any time soon. Viktor sunk lower in his seat. What had he gotten himself into with this project? _You can still quit_ , a tiny voice reminded him. He had heard this voice before—when he’d taken up the violin, and spent a week training for the London marathon, and bought that pottery kiln. In another life, maybe, where circumstances motivated him to achieve, he had accomplished a great deal. He was smart and graceful and talented in many ways, only he didn’t need _skills_ and _awards_ to reinforce that, because he had money. Status was his prize, and he won it time and time again.

So he often quit at his projects. He was content in his laziness. And he could quit at this one too, and he would feel no less perfect for it.

Except that Yuuri had challenged him. If there was one way to get Viktor to accomplish something, it was to tell him he couldn’t do it.

He sat up. “Chris. If you take my advice, I can make you very happy.”

Chris blinked down at him, his smile twisting strangely, amused and confused. “Happy?”

“Yes. Happy.” Viktor stood, and went to one of his closets—the one where he kept pieces from three or four seasons ago, things he couldn’t continue to wear in good conscience, but which would do fine for preventing Chris from looking like the dregs of Miami’s nightlife. “I’ll get you a boyfriend.”

“A boyfriend.” Chris hummed, considering. “Do I have to be monogamous?”

Viktor squinted at him over the label of a Hermès jacket. “Do you have to…” _What have you gotten yourself into._ “I mean, I suppose that’s between you and—” He caught himself before Leroy’s name escaped him, but Chris had lit up.

“Me and _who_?”

“Oh, just…”

“Are you setting me up?” asked Chris excitedly, plopping down on to the nearest plush ottoman like a child ready to hear his favorite story. His enthusiasm soothed some of Viktor’s hesitation—how could anyone resist such devoted attention from a protege? Chris would eat up any crumb Viktor had to throw him, and that thrilled Viktor, meaning he was undoubtedly on some kind of bizarre power trip with this matchmaking business. But there were worse power trips to be on when you were a (rumored) billionaire, right?

“I did have someone in mind,” Viktor said, and extended the Hermès to Chris. “Put this on.”

Chris donned the jacket, and did a little turn for Viktor. “Who is it? Someone I know? _Please_.”

“He’s very rich.” Chris’s eyes lit up. Viktor had begun to suspect he had less money than he put on—many people did, in their circles. “And… charming.” This lie took a great deal of effort, but Chris appeared to buy it.

“Is he hot?”

“Oh—yes, sure.” Viktor was loathe to admit this, but Leroy didn’t injure the eyes. He was rarely the most striking person in the room, but if you looked at him closely, the results were… not terrible. “He’s gorgeous.”

Chris’s eyes went unfocused, as though imagining the most gorgeous man possible for himself, and Viktor decided not to burst his bubble. It couldn’t hurt him to be hopeful for a few days, before Viktor introduced the two men. “When do I get to meet him?” Chris asked, right on cue.

“Ah! I’m going to have a dinner party and invite you both. Just enough people not to put you two on the spot, but not so many that you can’t spend the evening getting to know each other.” Viktor was rather proud of the event—he’d planned the menu himself, and convinced Yuuri to show off his talent on the grand piano. It would be a relaxed, romantic, sexy evening, the ideal backdrop for meeting your future significant other.

“Do you know how big his dick is?” Chris asked, with a smile.

“What? No—”

“Do you think it’s big?”

“There is no universe in which I’d have this conversation with you.”

“So you haven’t already slept with him?”

“No! I—no. Why would you think that?”

“I figured you were setting me up with him because you already slept with him and thought I would have fun sleeping with him too.”

If Viktor were meaner, and not so startled by the suggestion, he would’ve explained to Chris that he wouldn’t fuck Leroy with a ten-foot pole, but he couldn’t stop gagging long enough to get it out. He threw a pair of pants at Chris and attempted to scrub some disturbing images from his mind. “Put those on and don’t report back to me with your findings.”

Chris obeyed with a smile, unfazed by the whole thing, still with that faraway look in his eyes. Of course, obeying in this case meant shoving his idiotic Bermuda shorts down in a single motion; Viktor made a noise of disgust and threw back his head to avoid an eyeful of Chris’s underwear, which proved as tight as the rest of his clothing.

“We need to work on your modesty,” Viktor sighed, staring at the ceiling.

“Modesty is for ugly people, Viktor.”

“That’s…” Viktor realized he agreed. “Let’s keep a few things to the imagination?”

Chris’s attention had wandered back to his reflection and, while he nodded, it was hard to tell how much of this advice he’d absorbed. He seemed more interested in how Viktor’s pants fit his ass than in bettering himself for the sake of society. But this was what made him a project, wasn’t it? His apparent disinterest in improving himself. If Viktor were really good—and he was—he could not only make a dignified bachelor out of Chris, but he could make Chris _aspire_ to be a dignified bachelor.

“Chris.” Chris started, and blinked at him in the mirror. “I want you to try to take it slow with this person I’m introducing to you.”

You’d think Chris had never heard the phrase _take it slow_ before, with the way he stared at Viktor in apparent confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, get to know him.”

“Get to know him…”

“Don’t jump into bed with him immediately,” Viktor finally said, exasperated.

“Oh!” Chris nodded. “But why not?”

Viktor had only known Chris for a few weeks, but he had already developed a clear picture of who this man was and what he cared about. Understanding that, he knew he couldn’t just say the common sense thing—rushing an affair could make his lover feel used, and ruin the potential for the kind of serious relationship you could treasure into old age—so he had to improvise an answer that might actually get through to Chris. “Because…” Viktor sighed. “It makes the sex better.”

And it worked. Chris spun around to face Viktor. “Wait, _really_?”

“Yes.”

“Have you tried it?”

“Sure.”

“And it was especially good?”

“Like scratching an ancient itch.” Viktor cleared his throat. It seemed prudent to divert the conversation away from the topic of his sex life, and the ugly thoughts that accompanied it. God forbid Chris want specifics and Viktor not have them. “Anyway, try to know him for a couple of weeks before you make a move. Think of it as roleplay, I don’t know. Whatever you have to do to get through it.”

“I will,” said Chris, doing another spin in the mirror. “I love a little sex game. Are you giving me this suit?”

“Oh… yes, it’s Winter 2012. Wouldn’t be caught dead.”

“Thank you!”

Viktor stuck his head back into his closet. “You’re welcome. Now take it off—we’re just getting started.”

 

 

 

 

Viktor didn’t like to say _I told you so._

He liked to shout _I told you so_ from the rooftops, or even better, in Yuuri Katsuki’s face.

Yes, okay, Yuuri was one of his oldest friends, and they shared almost everything, and Viktor trusted Yuuri with his life. But he also considered his friend a bit of a know-it-all, a little holier-than-thou, looking down on Viktor’s decisions from the sidelines with a frown that said, _Aren’t you better than this?_

Yuuri did that out of love, because he had gone through his adolescence looking up to Viktor, and treating him with reverence; he thought highly of Viktor and wanted him to be the best person he could be. But the more Yuuri matured and came into his own, and the closer they became as friends, the freer he felt expressing his disagreement, and it got kind of _annoying_ —Yuuri always seemed to find more things wrong with Viktor’s behavior than he did right.

So naturally Viktor leapt at any opportunity to prove himself in the face of Yuuri’s doubt. And this dinner party, oh, it had served Viktor well.

They were about an hour and a half into the evening and had just moved from the dining room to the parlor, no pair of hands without a cocktail or a glass of champagne, lounge music warming the room. The guests chatted happily among themselves: Phichit was here, and the Crispino siblings, and Emil Nekola, a Czech software guru. Viktor was having a pleasant enough conversation with Guang Hong Ji, the son of some banker Viktor’s company had been dealing with. He was a nervous thing, but sweet-looking and well-mannered, and ridiculously respectful of Viktor, to the point where he’d bowed upon entering the apartment.

Then Viktor spotted Yuuri ducking toward the hallway. Viktor knew his patterns well enough to guess that he was headed out to pee, because he’d drunk three or four glasses of water in an effort to keep from drinking until later in the evening. Viktor waited until he saw Yuuri return, then steered Ji’s attention in the direction of another guest.

“You see him? That’s Seung-gil Lee. He breeds Siberian Huskies. They’re beautiful—ask him about it.” Viktor promptly abandoned Ji, but Seung-gil had said three words all night and could do with a friendly, easy, inquisitive conversation partner like Ji.

Viktor intercepted Yuuri and dragged him off to the side of the lounge, where they couldn’t be overheard. “Do you see what’s happening here?” he said, unable to suppress his grin.

Yuuri glanced out over the room with a raised eyebrow. “You put on a nice dinner? Everyone seems to be having a good time and getting along.” Yuuri smiled to himself. “Which I’m assuming means you’re bored?”

“ _No_ —Chris and J.J.!” Viktor did his best to subtly gesture toward the two men. “Do you see them?”

“Yes, they’re… talking?”

“Did you notice how long they’ve been talking?”

“From how worked up you seem, I’m guessing it’s been a while?”

“Since the soup course!” Viktor sat them beside one another, and Chris had been on top of his flirting game, including keeping sexual references to a bare minimum. Things were going swimmingly.

Leroy caught Viktor looking at him across the room and gave a little wave, then a wink. Chris quickly caught on, but mimed grabbing JJ’s ass behind his back instead of waving.

“Yes,” said Yuuri weakly. “You were… on to something there?”

“I was, they’re completely—” Viktor was about to call them _obsessed_ with one another, and maybe get in that _I told you so_ , but Leroy had taken Viktor’s smile as an invitation to join he and Yuuri, and left Chris standing alone to weave across the room. Shit. Viktor ducked behind Yuuri and began pushing him toward the piano. “It’s time for some live music, don’t you think?” Yuuri had put on one of those judgmental frowns, but he didn’t voice a protest when Viktor shoved him on to the piano bench.

Before Leroy could reach Viktor and engage him in conversation, Viktor stepped forward to address the entire party. “We have special entertainment for you this evening! The musical talents of my dear friend, Yuuri Katsuki.” Viktor turned back and gave Yuuri a smile over the piano. Yuuri returned it warmly. He had no talent for fake smiles. It was remarkable, actually, how he could rarely bring himself to be anything less than genuine. “Please play for us, Yuuri.”

He did have a talent for the piano. While he played everyone went quiet, because Yuuri’s music could take the breath from your lungs and the words from your mouth. Viktor recognized the piece as one of Yuuri’s own compositions—he’d sat at that very piano plucking out the melody. _Every note is like extracting a thorn from my side_ , he said. Now it seemed to flow from his fingers painlessly; it might even have given him pleasure. The guests would never know how much care and love and suffering had gone into the piece’s creation. To them, Yuuri’s music seemed effortless. Only Viktor knew its secret origin, but the understanding that Yuuri had struggled to make this incredible thing only made him more enamored of the final result.

When Yuuri finished, the party applauded. “Was that one of yours?” Phichit asked. Yuuri nodded. “It’s amazing! Does it have a name?”

Yuuri hesitated, glancing sideways at Viktor, who gave him a wink. Yuuri didn’t smile back. “It’s untitled at the moment.”

Michele Crispino scowled into his wine glass. “It felt… sad.”

“It wasn’t _sad_ ,” said Sara. “It was about love, obviously.”

“Love is sad sometimes,” Michele replied, somber.

Chris, always prepared to say the daring thing without realizing how daring it was, leaned forward to address Yuuri directly. “So is it about sad love, then?”

Viktor found himself listening closely for Yuuri’s response. He would sometimes ask what had motivated Yuuri’s compositions, and the answers ranged from an elegy on the death of his family dog to a celebration of a civil rights victory in his home country. And maybe it was because Viktor knew how personal the explanations were that he didn’t inquire after this particular piece. The song seemed so fragile and sad, longing for something, but finding peace within the failure to discover it. Viktor wanted to know, but he didn’t want to be the one to ask—he didn’t think he could handle the conversation that might follow.

Yuuri didn’t look up from the keys. “Love… yes. I meant for it to be more thoughtful than sad. Maybe I need to tweak it—”

“ _No!_ ” The word burst out of Viktor, and suddenly everyone was looking at him, including Yuuri, and not in a way that he liked. “I… I think it’s excellent the way it is,” he said, with a smile, and a shrug. Not his most elegant save, but it sufficed.

Chris grinned at Yuuri. “I don’t think Viktor wants you to rewrite it.”

Yuuri laughed, though it sounded hollow and tired. “You’re right, I don’t think he does.” Viktor felt slightly pink and pretended to be occupied picking something out of Makkachin’s fur.

“If that’s about love, what’s gone wrong in _your_ love life lately?” Chris asked, with the cadence of a joke, so everyone in the room chuckled except Viktor.

Even Yuuri was smiling along. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I have plenty of love in my life.”

 

 

 

 

At the end of the dinner party, Viktor watched Chris and Leroy say goodbye and leave separately, and he felt victorious. Chris had controlled himself. This was going to work.

In the next few weeks, Chris spent more and more time at Viktor’s apartment, until he’d claimed one of the bedrooms as his own and the chef knew his breakfast order (two eggs over easy with slightly burned bacon). The more time they spent together, Viktor figured, the more he might absorb Viktor’s talent for comporting himself. But it was also nice to have another young person around—someone he could talk to after his uncle had gone to bed, and when Yuuri was working. Viktor and Chris got on well, better than Viktor could have predicted. Even Chris’s naughty sense of humor grew on him—not that he had ever been opposed to a dirty joke, he just didn’t like the jokes to be about _his_ sex life. Maybe a few years ago, but right now, it was a sensitive topic.

Fall bore down on them and Viktor relished the last afternoons that could be spent in the idyllic, manicured garden at the heart of Bedfords Walk, with a pitcher of mojitos and a good book, Makkachin stretched out in the grass nearby.

“Don’t you get bored with this?”

Chris had joined him today after lunch and a dip in the pool. He was still in his speedo, a towel around his shoulders, letting the sun dry him as he lounged on one of the garden chairs.

Viktor peeked at him over the top of his novel. “Bored with what?”

“I don’t know… just sitting around drinking and reading. It seems boring.”

“I can never be bored if I’m reading,” Viktor said, a little indignant. Chris looked unconvinced, and maybe he did have a point—as much as Viktor loved to read, there were days he couldn’t bear to pick up a book. The monotony could be stifling. But when it got to that point he typically planned a vacation or set up some event for charity, and shook himself out of the _ennui_. “Why, did you have another activity in mind?”

“Sort of.” Chris popped forward and thrust his phone toward Viktor; it was open to a text conversation between him and Leroy. Viktor’s pulse picked up, but he hesitated for a moment.

“This is in French.” Right. Switzerland and Montreal.

“Oh! Yes, they’re in French. Should I translate for you?”

“No, I’ve got it!” Though it took him a moment to dust off the language, he did, and scanned the conversation.

“See,” said Chris, stretching his leg upward. “He bought that apartment near you!”

Both the phone and the novel flew out of Viktor’s hands. “ _Excuse_ _me_?” It was nearly a shout.

Chris laughed, and bent over to recover the book. “Well, I _have_ been spending a lot of time around here.”

 _What have I done_. Viktor accepted his novel from Chris and forced a smile. At least his matchmaking had been successful. Maybe Leroy would become more bearable once Chris moved in on him? The attention he sought from Viktor could be provided elsewhere. This didn’t have to be the disaster Viktor feared.

“Anyway.” Chris settled back in his chair, tilting his head toward the sun. “We’re going to have drinks tonight. I think I’m going to try pinching his ass.”

Before Viktor had a chance to caution Chris against premeditated groping, they were distracted by the sound of a window opening above the garden. Yuuri poked his head outside, and called down to them from the top floor. “Why were you shouting? I’m trying to write.”

“Come down here,” Viktor answered, gesturing for him to join them. Yuuri disappeared and shut the window behind him.

Chris tapped something into his phone. “He wants you to come to drinks too, Viktor.”

“Me? You don’t think I’d be a third wheel?”

Chris shrugged. “His request, not mine.” He was frowning, a rare sight, but quickly rearranged his face into a smile. Hm.

“Well, tell him no. I can’t tonight anyway.” Yuuri appeared at the entrance to the garden and Viktor brightened. “My uncle's house guest gets in tonight.”

“Oh? Who’s that?”

Yuuri’s arrival was more interesting than that question. “ _Yuuri_ , Leroy has bought that apartment.” Viktor had already convinced himself that this was a good and not-terrible thing, and was grinning about it shamelessly.

“Really?” After greeting Makkachin, Yuuri took a seat at Viktor’s little table and sniffed his drink. “Don’t you think this is a little too strong?”

“No such thing as a drink that’s too strong. I don’t think you’re hearing me, Yuuri—Leroy has decided to come to Bedfords Walk!”

“I heard you?”

“Yes but—” Viktor gestured loosely at Chris. “What has _changed_ here at Bedfords that might make him want to live here?”

“He’s saying it’s because of me,” Chris said. He did a little pose for Yuuri.

Yuuri looked between the two of them, Viktor with his expectant gaze wanting to be praised, Chris oblivious to Viktor’s scheming but enjoying himself nonetheless. And Yuuri sighed. It had to get tiring for him, always being the most reasonable person in the room. “J.J. was looking at that flat before he ever met Chris,” Yuuri pointed out, stifling a sigh. “He already wanted to live here.”

“But Chris being here all the time clearly pushed him over the edge,” said Viktor. He gestured at Chris again. “I mean, here he is, lounging around mostly naked in the garden! Who wouldn’t want to look out their window and get an eyeful of this?”

Yuuri turned to Chris. “I’d been meaning to ask about that. You know it’s September, right?”

“I don’t understand your point,” said Chris, chin on his fist.

The struggle not to judge played out on Yuuri’s face. He was good that way, poor thing, always laboring over the right thing to do and say. In this instance, it was, “Then… never mind.”

“I insist that Leroy is coming to live here because he wants to be closer to Chris.” Viktor announced this with all the cheerful finality he could muster—he didn’t want Chris catching any of Yuuri’s skepticism.

“Well, if you insist,” Yuuri said, deadpan.

“Good.” Viktor nudged Yuuri’s knee with his socked foot. “Otabek arrives tonight.”

“Otabek,” Chris echoed, looking up from his phone. “What kind of name is ‘Otabek’?”

“He’s originally from Kazakstan, but he’s spent time in Russia, I believe.” Viktor nudged Yuuri’s knee again, this time harder. Yuuri scooted his chair away. “You’re going to come to dinner tonight, right?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes! I need your support.” Yakov had been going on and on about Otabek, how intelligent and well-spoken he was, how hard he worked, how he had done his family proud. Viktor couldn’t help but feel somewhat needled by the praise for Otabek, who had taken such a different path from Viktor himself—openly participating in the company his parents had built, trying to expand his wealth rather than maintain it. Viktor got the distinct vibe that maybe Yakov was less happy with circumstances than he’d let on, back when a young Viktor had declared his intention to leave the company to the care of the trustees. He wasn’t even on the board that met to make important decisions, and Yakov had mentioned repeatedly that Otabek was the president of his parents’ company’s board’s country club’s tennis tournament. Or something. (These were not details Viktor really absorbed.)

All this information had irritated Viktor to the point where he was sure he wouldn’t get through the evening without drinking more than usual. That was where Yuuri came in: he could prevent Viktor from making a fool of himself.

“My support,” Yuuri repeated. Undoubtedly he’d recognize that _support_ was code for _don’t let me get drunk and take my shirt off._ He rubbed his eyes under his glasses; when his vision cleared, Viktor’s intent, beaming face greeted him. “Okay! Okay, fine. I’ll be there.”

“Yay! My savior!”

“Maybe I should try more than just pinching his ass,” Chris mused, smirking at his phone. God, it was one step forward and two steps back with him.

Viktor was debating how best to handle that comment when Yuuri stepped in. “You know, when you talk about ‘trying things,’ it makes you sound…” Yuuri glanced at Viktor, waiting for him to fill in the blank. Viktor gave him a smile that clearly said, _thank you_.

“It makes you sound creepy!”

Yuuri winced—he had probably wanted something gentler, but Viktor didn’t mince words when it came to constructive criticism.

Chris sat back, eyes round. “It does?” _He didn’t know. He seriously didn’t know_. “I didn’t mean that…”

“We know,” Yuuri told him, ever kind.

Chris still looked startled by the news, and stood up. “Thanks for making me aware, I suppose.” He turned to Viktor. “May I—a shower?”

“Yes, of course. Go on up. Use whichever you like.”

He left them with a smile and a wave. As soon as he was out of earshot, Yuuri turned to Viktor, frowning that deep inconsolable frown of his.

“What?” said Viktor, grinning.

“You know what.”

“No! No I don’t.” Viktor stuffed his face back in his novel. “As they say around here, I haven’t the foggiest.”

 

 

 

 

 

Kind Yuuri, good Yuuri; he let that conversation rest for the time being. He went back upstairs to the piano and Viktor didn’t see him again until dinner time.

Upon opening the door to let him in, the first thing Viktor said was, “You’re wearing that sweater!” The sweater and Yuuri’s wearing it pleasantly surprised him—it had been one of Viktor’s birthday presents to him the previous year, and while he claimed to like it, he’d worn it _maybe_ three times in Viktor’s presence.

Yuuri ran a hand over his chest. “It’s a little flashy for me.” He looked uncomfortable in it even now? It was _literally_ just a nice cashmere sweater in blue argyle. Nothing could be more classic. Viktor let him get away with an eye roll.

“Otabek is supposed to arrive any minute—”

“ _Vitya_ ,” came Yakov’s holler from the dining room. “Is that him?”

“No, Uncle, it’s just Yuuri!”

“It’s just Yuuri,” Yuuri echoed softly to Makkachin, who was excited to see him.

Not a moment after the front door closed behind Yuuri, there was a knock.

Otabek Altin had not changed much since the last time Viktor saw him. He was a few inches taller, and his haircut was slightly more fashionable, but he had the same aloofness in his eyes and the tilt of his mouth that had led Viktor and Yuuri to remember him mainly as _severe_. Viktor’s expectations for his conversation and company were mixed, and as the four of them sat down to dinner, Otabek talked mostly about his role in the corporation and the state of the markets. If he felt nervous and it kept him from talking about anything of actual interest, it was impossible to see those nerves through his steely exterior, so Viktor had trouble forgiving him for being an absolute bore.

Eventually Viktor resolved to get something more than a snooze out of him. After all, they’d been friends for a time—there had to be more to Otabek than this. “So,” said Viktor, seizing upon a lull in the conversation. (And upon his chipper mood after four glasses of Chardonnay—and this was _with_ Yuuri slowing him down.) “We haven’t seen you around here in a long time! What brings you back to London for such a long stay?”

Otabek took a sip of his drink before answering. It seemed to last eons. “There’s always work to do in London.”

“But in the past you’ve never stayed for more than a day or two. Eventually we just gave up on inviting you to things.” Viktor looked to Yuuri for confirmation, and got a half-hearted nod.

“I’ve neglected my friends here. I’m sorry for that.” Otabek met his eye across the table. It sent a little shiver down Viktor’s spine. Otabek had an intensity about him that defied words. “I hope you can forgive me.”

“Oh, please. I’m not a priest,” Viktor chuckled. “I just want to know, why the sudden change?”

Otabek ducked his head. “No reason.” Oh, _hm_. Viktor had certainly succeeded in getting something interesting out of him, hadn’t he?”

“Stop pestering him,” Yakov barked from the head of the table. “Otabek, I want to hear more about your handling of the shareholders. It was riveting.” Viktor mimed drooling to Yuuri.

Off somewhere in another part of the apartment, there was a bang.

The four of them froze. Yakov’s fork was halfway to his mouth.

“What was that?” Yuuri whispered.

It happened again: _bang bang bang bang_.

“Someone’s pounding on the door,” Viktor realized—and he was on his feet, striding toward the entrance.

“Vitya, let Otabek go, he’s stronger than you!”

“Oh, Uncle, don’t—” Viktor reached the front door and checked the peephole, where— _what_.

He threw the door open. There, in a three-piece suit, wet from head to toe but only on the left side of his body, glaring fiercely enough to start a fire, was Jean-Jacques Leroy.

“Viktor,” he seethed. “What have you _done_?”

While Viktor wondered the same thing, wailing erupted at the end of the hall. Chris charged toward them, wearing—nothing but a towel around his waist, _shit_ —and Leroy wheeled around on him.

“Don’t come near me!”

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Chris shouted, wild-eyed and mostly naked. He extended his free arm (the one not holding up the towel) to Leroy, but Leroy had already taken off down the corridor, fleeing him in haste.

He screamed over his shoulder: “We are _not_ doing this again—” Which begged the question what it was exactly they had already done?

Chris paused outside Viktor’s front door to catch his breath. When he looked up at Viktor, it was with a sheepish smile. “I think maybe you were right about waiting!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BUCKLE UP?


	3. visitation rights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter introduces the otayuri plot line. it's not quite 2017 here, but happy new year, anyway!

“I’ll be back to dinner in a moment, Uncle—just have to take care of something!”

Viktor ushered Chris into his usual guest room, locking the door behind him. He dug a robe out from the closet and tossed it to Chris, who wrapped himself in it like a plush cocoon and perched on the end of the bed. His face was red, his eyes round and glossy, but he wore a strange smile, too. As if it were a mask, and he thought he could hide his disappointment behind it.

“What happened?” Viktor asked, pacing the floor. Leroy’s words were echoing in his head— _Viktor, what have you done?_

“Oh, well. We were at a bar and he wanted to visit the new apartment.” The cheer in Chris’s voice was forced. Viktor resisted the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. To tell him it was all right to be upset, or angry. “He showed me around and started talking about coming up here to surprise you. Then I got naked and went in the hot tub.” _Oh._ That explained the water. Chris scratched his chin. “He wasn’t thrilled when I called him into the bathroom… and I tried to keep him from walking out, but I got water all over the floor, and he—” Chris laughed stiffly. “Slipped and fell into the tub!” 

“Oy.” Viktor ran a hand through his hair—a habit, but it didn’t help his mood to feel the thinness of his hairline. “Where are your clothes? Still at Leroy’s apartment?” Chris nodded. “Okay. Stay here, I’m going to go get them. I’ll be right back.”

When Viktor slipped out of the guest room, Yuuri was waiting for him in the corridor, wringing his hands. “What’s going on? Who was it?”

Viktor felt as though he’d been caught secretly holding up the Jenga tower with his finger. He flashed Yuuri a charming grin. “Oh, just—you know, the best thing you could do for me right now would be to go back to the table and keep our guest entertained.”

“He and Yakov have been talking about the railroad industry ever since you left. I’m kind of at a loss?” Yuuri made a move to open the door, but Viktor quickly blocked it, forcing a chuckle.

“Oh, come on! Everybody loves Yuuri.” Yuuri raised an eyebrow. _Okay, that was a gamble._ “Listen, try jumping into the conversation. It’ll be fine.”

“Viktor, don’t use my anxiety as a distraction for whatever you’re hiding right now.”

Viktor winced. _God_. “Ha.” Why did Yuuri have be so… so… “Fine. Chris is in this room, and something has happened with him and J.J., and I’ve got to go hunt down that damn Canadian and figure out what’s going on. Oh, and retrieve Chris’s clothes, because he’s naked. That might be the least shocking part of it.”

Yuuri’s mouth hung open, which at least gave Viktor the satisfaction of surprising him. “Is Chris okay?”

Remembering the expression on Chris’s face a few moments ago, Viktor had to sigh. “He’s seen better days.”

“I’ll go and sit with him while you find J.J.” When Viktor didn’t step out of the way, Yuuri added, “Please. I’m trying to help you.” _You won’t be when you realize that this is my fault_ , Viktor grumbled inwardly. Letting Yuuri go into that room with Chris was letting him figure out that Chris had only gone for J.J. on Viktor’s advice, and Viktor led Chris to be sure of J.J.’s interest, so sure Chris tried to rush things in a bad way. But Viktor had no alternative—either he told Yuuri outright that this was likely his doing, or he let Yuuri do the math with Chris’s testimony. The latter seemed preferable.

So Viktor stepped aside, and Yuuri opened the door. “See you in a few. Good luck,” said Yuuri, before he slipped inside.

Viktor crept out of the apartment, hoping to depart and return unnoticed by Yakov. He didn’t want to think about how bad this would make him look, and in front of his uncle’s beloved student, too. He hadn't yet settled on a lie—an upset stomach? An important phone call? But Yakov would ask why he didn’t look flushed, or who could be calling at this hour.

The apartment Leroy had purchased was a floor down and around the corner from Viktor’s. A smaller, less expensive unit, but still magnificent. Every place in Bedfords Walk was. The previous owner had been arrested for embezzlement and his children sold the property at a loss, meaning Leroy got it for a steal, maybe a couple million pounds less than it was worth. Viktor sort of hated to be thinking about such things as he made the short journey, but it was better than meditating on what he’d find when he got there.

There were wet tracks in the hallway leading up to the apartment, and he carefully stepped over them to knock.

For a minute he heard nothing on the other side of the door. Perhaps Leroy hadn’t run back to his apartment after all. He could be wandering the streets of London in a half-soaked suit—Viktor liked this possibility, since he could always lend Chris another one of his outdated cast-offs to wear. And there was the added bonus of not having to face his mistakes, preferably ever, or at least as long as he could avoid them.

But the door to Leroy’s apartment cracked open. His disheveled head poked out into the hallway, glaring.

Viktor greeted him cheerily. “Let’s talk, shall we?”

Leroy’s mouth twisted into a snarl, and for a second Viktor thought he’d have the door shut in his face. Then Leroy threw it open and ushered him inside.

The sight of a near-empty apartment took Viktor aback. Leroy couldn’t have purchased it more than a few days ago—at most there were a couple of boxes stacked in a corner. The main room was cavernous and empty. Viktor’s footsteps echoed off the tall ceilings. “Not quite settled, are you?”

“What are you doing here?” Leroy asked. No time for small talk, apparently. Viktor stopped trying to fake a smile.

“I came to pick up Chris’s things. And apologize for his behavior.”

Leroy still wore that awful scowl. “His stuff is in the bedroom,” he said, pointing Viktor toward the hallway. He’d taken off his suit jacket and vest and it looked like he might have tried to ring out his shirt, wrinkling it. Leroy cleaned up nicely, but this was the opposite of cleaned up, and Viktor found himself holding back a snicker as he trotted off to retrieve the clothes from a heap in the bedroom.

Upon returning to the main room, he found Leroy seated on the floor, angrily tapping at his phone.

Now was the time to plug the leak in this rapidly sinking ship. If he could convince J.J. that Chris meant well and would be less forward in the future, perhaps their budding romance could be salvaged, and they’d both grow from the experience. And, more importantly, Viktor wouldn’t have to admit to Yuuri that he’d been wrong.

“You know,” Viktor began, conversational. Leroy looked up. His eyes were rimmed red. “I don’t think he wanted to put you out. Christophe, I mean. He’s quite attracted to you.”

“I don’t _care_ that he’s attracted to me.”

“Yes, well, I’m just saying. You don’t have to give up on him because he came on too strong.”

J.J. slowly got to his feet. “What do you mean, give up on him?”

“On your budding romance! If you truly care for each other—”

“ _Romance_?” J.J. wailed. “Our _romance?_ ”

Viktor was beginning to get a bad feeling. He cleared his throat. “Ah. Yes?”

“You think we have a _romance_? Really? A _romance_?”

“There’s no need to keep repeating it, I think I’ve gotten your point.”

J.J. stepped toward him with a raised finger. “There’s never been anything romantic between me and Chris. I was spending time with him because he’s _your_ friend and—” He threw his hands up. “—and I’m fucking stupid, apparently!”

“No need to swear,” Viktor muttered. Deflecting.

“Chris is fine, he’s _nice_ , he’s stupid, he’d sleep with anything that—not one moment have I been interested in him like—like _that_.” J.J. ducked his head, and Viktor had to wonder how much he actually understood what was going on within himself—what he wanted. His voice dripped venom at the very suggestion, but Viktor had seen Leroy look at men with interest—he’d felt J.J. look at _him_ that way. And it was sad to see him struggle, balking violently, shocked another person could observe something in him he hadn’t yet discovered in himself.

Viktor said softly, “All right. I’m sorry for implying it.”

“You should be!” J.J. shot back. His nostrils flared. He turned his back to Viktor.

“You’re a bit of a narcissistic ass, you know.”

J.J. wheeled around on him. _Oh dear._ “Pardon?”

“Retracted,” Viktor coughed. “Stop making that face, it’s terrifying.” There was nothing left for him to do in this situation. _You’ve done enough_ , said Yuuri’s voice in the back of his head. “Goodnight, then. I hope we can be civil in the future.”

As Leroy’s door shut behind him, a heavy thought collapsed on his shoulders: what was he going to tell Chris?

 

 

 

 

Yuuri was waiting for Viktor in the penthouse foyer. “Chris fell asleep about five minutes after you left,” he explained, and relief flooded Viktor—this meant that Chris hadn’t had time to explain Viktor’s meddling to Yuuri. Viktor snuck into the guest room and indeed, Chris was passed out, spread-eagled atop the covers. Viktor set his clothes within easy reach, and then he and Yuuri returned to dinner, where Yakov and Otabek were still so engrossed in their conversation they might never have noticed their companions were gone.

Later that night, Yuuri announced that he needed to go back to his place before the staff began to worry, and Viktor saw him out, which was really an excuse for them to chat about what had happened.

“Text me if you need any help with anything,” Yuuri told Viktor earnestly. “I can come right over.”

“Thank you. I will.”

“I hope everything works out between them. Chris seemed really into him.”

Viktor tried to smile and failed. “Well.”

“You didn’t get any idea of what had happened from J.J.?”

 _Oyoyoy. Shit._ Viktor stood there staring at him stupidly. He dug around in his mind for an answer—how hard would it be to simply say no? _No, I did not get any idea of what happened from J.J._ Yet Yuuri was oppressively difficult to lie to, for what reason Viktor couldn’t say, or rather didn’t care to investigate.

“Viktor.” He’d been silently gazing at Yuuri for several seconds. “Are you okay?”

 _Where is that Nikiforov charm_. “I’m fine,” said Viktor, flipping his radiance on like a light. Perhaps if he told Yuuri the news with a smile, it wouldn’t seem so bad. “It seems I may have underestimated J.J.’s initial interest in Christophe!”

“What?”

“Oh, you know.” Viktor fiddled with his cuff, still smiling. “He mentioned to me that he was—not all that interested in Chris sexually. Or romantically. Or at all, really.”

Yuuri’s eyes narrowed. “Then why was he spending all that time with him?”

For this Viktor could not persist in his false cheer. “To get close to me.”

He was afraid to look at Yuuri in the moment that immediately followed, but he risked a glance at his friend’s face. Yuuri’s eyes were closed and his face scrunched into a frown, as though he’d just heard something that pained him deeply. It gave Viktor the itchy feeling that he wasn’t upset enough on Chris’s behalf.

Yuuri opened his eyes. “Does Chris know?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you’re going to tell him.” Ah yes, _that_. When Viktor hesitated in his answer, Yuuri took a step toward him. “You encouraged him to go after J.J., even though you _knew_ he was attracted to you and not—you owe Chris that explanation, Viktor.”

“I know. I’ll tell him.” Viktor met the skepticism in Yuuri’s eye with a firm tone. “I promise I will.”

“You should! You _have_ to. If Chris is destroyed by this, that’s on your shoulders.”

“No it isn’t.” He had to roll his eyes at that one—Yuuri would have blamed global warming on Viktor if he could, it sometimes felt. It was impossible not defend himself. “Leroy is the one who broke his heart! He used Chris to get close to me.”

But Yuuri doubled down. They argued in harsh whispers, not wanting to be overheard. “And that was awful of him, but it never would have happened if you hadn’t convinced Chris to go after him. All because you were _bored_?”

“I genuinely thought Leroy was interested!”

“Did you, or did you ignore the warning signs?”

Warning signs. Leroy abandoning Chris at the dinner party for the chance to start a conversation with Viktor. Getting invited along to have drinks with them—and the apartment _._ How could he have been so stupid about the apartment? “No,” Viktor murmured, running a hand down his face.

There was a tremor in Yuuri’s voice. “You did, didn’t you?”

“Are you really so concerned with Chris’s feelings, or do you just love an opportunity to shame me?”

“You deserve to be shamed!” Yuuri’s voice broke, finally—Viktor stepped back from him. “I told you, people are _people_ , not projects. They aren’t your—your playthings, and now someone who’s supposed to be your friend has been humiliated and—potentially really hurt by what you did. And you won’t take responsibility for it?”

“You’re overreacting.” That seemed obvious to Viktor. Yuuri was far from immune to hysteria, but he rarely got angry. Anger was a shocking emotion on him, and Viktor hated it, and the nausea it left in his stomach. “Chris is stronger than you think, he’s not going to shatter because some idiot didn’t like him back.”

“You have no idea what it’s like to have feelings for someone and get rejected.”

“Oh, and you do?”

Viktor regretted saying this even as the words left his lips. _Unfair_ , that was the word for it. You didn’t go there, not if you had any shred of compassion in you. But maybe Viktor didn’t. He watched Yuuri’s eyes well with unshed tears.

Well, he could at least manage remorse. “I’m sorry—”

“I’m going.” Yuuri pushed past him and out the apartment door.

“Yuuri! Yuuri.”

Viktor hesitated in the doorway—Yakov would complain if he took yet another extended absence from dinner—but he took off down the hall after Yuuri anyway. He had to jog to close the gap and grab Yuuri by the elbow.

“I shouldn’t have said it.”

Yuuri shook off Viktor’s grip, but didn’t keep running. “Funny how you respond to being called an ass by acting like even more of an ass.”

“What can I say? I’m always trying to one-up myself, I’m very ambitious that way.”

Viktor gave Yuuri a smile like a peace offering. It was a moment before Yuuri said, sighing, “Tell Chris. Feel bad about it.”

“I do!”

“Then act like it.”

“I will. I am. Don’t be mad at me.” Yuuri turned away and Viktor moved with him, insistent. “Please! I can’t stand it when you’re cross with me, it gives me hives.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want you to get hives,” Yuuri muttered. Viktor let a hopeful giggle bubble out of him. He could feel Yuuri softening, his anger receding as they stood looking at each other. Seeing this warmed Viktor’s heart, and he—well, his body sort of moved without his consent—he swept Yuuri into a tight hug.

Yuuri squeaked in surprise. Viktor grinned into his shoulder, and then, as the embrace lingered too long and he caught the scent of soap on Yuuri’s neck, clapped him on the back (because, you know, _masculinity_ ) and pushed him away.

“Go on home,” he declared, too loud, as if he might drown out the note of awkwardness in their hug. It seemed to work all right, with Yuuri nodding curtly.

“You too.” Yuuri walked backward a few steps down the hall, gave him the tiniest of waves, and then disappeared around the corner.

Viktor had to lean against the wall for a moment and catch his breath—where it had gone, or where the heat on the back of his neck had come from, he didn’t want to consider. When he’d recovered, he returned to his apartment, and prepared after dinner cocktails for himself and Otabek with a smile.

 

 

 

 

That morning, Viktor had the chef prepare Chris’s usual breakfast, and brought it to him in the guest room. He set the tray across Chris’s lap, and took a seat on the end of the bed, and told him what had happened with J.J. the night before.

Chris ate a little before he issued his response, which was, very simply, “Oh. Okay, then.”

Viktor clasped his hands in his lap. He couldn’t keep from frowning. “I can’t help feeling this is—I’m sorry for leading you down the wrong path.”

“You didn’t know,” said Chris, too lightly. He wore that same smile he had last night, the one like a mask. “It was silly of me to think he’d be interested in me and not you. You’re Viktor Nikiforov, after all.”

Viktor shut his eyes. _How awful_. But he nodded. What else were you supposed to do, or say? “Nevertheless, I think… he might’ve been more sensitive in his treatment of you.”

Chris peered down at his eggs, and shrugged. Viktor didn’t want to press him to admit he’d been wronged—partly because it was Viktor himself who’d done some of the wronging. He knew it was bad, Yuuri had made it clear. He didn’t need to crucify himself in front of Chris to prove he felt guilty.

“You’ll move on from this.” Chris glanced up at him. Viktor patted his leg through the covers. “Plenty of fish, as they say.”

“I don’t enjoy fish very much.”

“Ah, well, it’s just… a figure of speech…” Chris looked thoroughly confused and the explanation didn’t seem worth it. “Never mind. As soon as you’re in the mood, I’ll take you out and get you thoroughly drunk and you can have some rollicking casual sex with an unsuspecting stranger.”

That brought the light back into Chris’s eyes. He nodded happily, and shoved a forkful of eggs in his mouth. “Do you think,” he said, around his food, “J.J. is angry with me?”

 _He’s certainly mad at someone._ Chris was probably in the mix. Viktor recalled what J.J. had said about his intelligence and, uh, sleeping habits, and had to cringe. “Oh, J.J. is angry with… the world, a little bit. And himself. It’s complicated.”

“I hope he works it out. I thought we had fun together.”

“I hope so too.”

“Are we going to see him again?”

“I don’t know,” said Viktor truthfully. The way he’d left things with J.J. didn’t make him feel like they’d be chatting over dinner any time soon. But they were stuck as neighbors for the time being, and they would undoubtedly run into each other at the myriad of social events hosted by their common acquaintances. “I expect so.” Plus, Viktor couldn’t bring himself to hate J.J., not when he seemed more confused and afraid than purposefully malevolent. Yuuri’s birthday was in a few weeks and he’d begun planning a massive party—he would likely be inviting Leroy, especially after Yuuri’s insistence that the blame for this fiasco lay with Viktor. The question was really, would J.J. come? They would have to wait until the RSVPs arrived to find out.

“I would like to see him,” Chris murmured. “We can be friends. I’m sure.”

Viktor didn’t have it in himself to argue.

 

 

 

 

As apartments in London went, the Nikiforov-Feltsman penthouse in Bedfords Walk was a mansion. Rarely did you find a flat you could get lost in, but the sprawling size of the penthouse—it stretched the entire length of the top floor, nearly a full city block, then occupied half of the floor below as a second level—meant it possessed an infinite number of hiding places. The privacy offered by the surplus of guest rooms and sitting nooks had endeared Viktor as a teenager; he could find a spot and settle in with a book and go undisturbed for hours.

He assumed Otabek had discovered this about the penthouse too, because after his initial arrival and reception, Viktor didn’t lay eyes on their house guest for a solid forty-eight hours. “Oh, he’s busy, mind your own business,” Yakov said, when he inquired after Otabek’s whereabouts. But it was strange—after apologizing for years of inaccessibility, Otabek had gone and made himself unavailable again. How were you supposed to invite along someone you never saw?

Not that Viktor had anywhere in particular to invite his guest. He hadn’t heard from Yuuri in a couple of days either, which was concerning, considering their last conversation. Undoubtedly there were parties going on, but Viktor couldn’t summon up enough interest to leave the flat.

On the third morning of Otabek’s inhabitance, and the third morning since his argument and fragile truce with Yuuri, Viktor awoke to a tiny knock at his bedroom door.

It was the maid: he had a visitor, apparently. She left and he flopped back into bed, Makkachin curled up near his feet. The clock on his nightstand said it was seven—far too early for visitors of any kind. He lamented that he’d failed to ask her for a name. Or maybe leaving it out was intentional. _Ugh_.

He crawled out of bed and threw on a robe, a thin silk thing, because no living force could convince him not to go back to bed after he dealt with whatever this was, and therefore he had no intention of getting dressed.

The apartment was eerily quiet at this hour. With Makkachin on his heels, Viktor glided through the halls and into the parlor, where his visitor awaited him—seated on the couch, the hood up on his jacket, shielding his face when Viktor entered behind him. But Viktor knew him by that alone. He suddenly got the sense he couldn’t get through this without caffeine.

He went to the intercom and hit the button for the staff. “Please have the chef bring me a coffee. French press will be fine.”

Yuri—the Russian one—shot up out of his seat at the sound of Viktor’s voice. “You’re not even going to offer me anything?”

“What would you like? Apple juice?”

Yuri’s expression soured. When he got offended he looked like a small cat held by its scruff, wriggling to get free. It gave Viktor unspeakable satisfaction—he’d heard that was normal for brothers.

Viktor hit the talk button again. “And Mr. Plisetsky will have an apple juice.”

“I see you’re still an ass.”

“I see you’re still a brat.” They glared at each other for a moment. Then Viktor laughed. “Should we hug?”

“Are you naked under that robe?”

“Yes.”

“Then fuck no.”

Grinning, Viktor settled on to the sofa opposite Yuri, who slowly sat again. Makkachin leap into Viktor’s lap and laid across it happily, a giant heater. Yuri looked stiff and agitated.

Viktor’s step-brother had grown in the years since they’d last seen each other. He was nearly out of his teenage years—a few months from twenty—and the baby fat had drained from his face, highlighting the strong, fine angles of his bone structure. And he was a rail, too, all elbows and knees. You could see how the magazines delighted in him. Viktor had dabbled in the modeling world, but he’d never had the slightly alien beauty that Yuri possessed. Viktor’s good looks were very much of this world; Yuri could make you think of things beyond it.

“So,” said Viktor, draping one leg over the other as he stroked Makkachin’s head. “Here you are, in my apartment, in London, at seven o’clock in the morning, completely unannounced. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I took an early flight,” said Yuri, through his teeth.

“Does my mother know you’re here?”

“Who cares? She’s not my mother.”

Viktor snorted. Yuri’s mother had died in his infancy; he’d been a year old when his father married Viktor’s mother. She may not have given birth to him, but she was the only mother he’d ever known, and it was funny to watch him dismiss that like he was still thirteen. The last he’d heard, Yuri still lived in the guest house at the family estate outside of Milan. Viktor understood Yuri’s impulse to distance himself, at least—sometimes Viktor liked to pretend she wasn’t his mother either. As long as it had been since he saw Yuri, it had been longer since he saw their mother, and he’d done that on purpose. “Are you staying here?” Viktor asked. Their drinks arrived, and Viktor set about fixing his French press.

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Permanently.”

Viktor swore as coffee tipped out of his cup. But it was no worse than the metaphorical stain. “ _Permanently_?”

“I’m moving to London,” said Yuri flatly. “And I can’t afford any place that isn’t a shithole, and you have a million rooms here. So I’m moving in with you.”

Viktor gaped. Ages seemed to pass before he could shut his mouth. “Do you expect me to thank you for all the advanced notice?”

“Oh, shut up, you don’t _do_ anything. Don’t act all inconvenienced.”

“I’ve already got a semi-permanent guest—” Yuri flinched. Odd. “—so forgive me if I’m a little hesitant to be doubly imposed on.”

Yuri’s eyes flashed. “But I’m your family.”

Viktor searched for an appropriate clapback, but could find none. Damn it. “Well… if you’re moving here, where are your things?” The only luggage he could see was a single duffel bag on the floor near Yuri’s feet.

“I…” Yuri’s nose wrinkled. “This is all I have.”

“ _You_?” Maybe it was the shared tutelage of their mother, but Yuri and Viktor had always had materialism in common.

“I left in a hurry.”

He’d left in a hurry—to catch an early morning flight. And the closer Viktor looked at him, the more he could see the cracks in his exterior, dark circles under his reddened eyes, chapped lips. He probably hadn’t slept the night before. Viktor carefully wiped the coffee from his robe. “Did something happen?”

“No,” Yuri snapped, which was as good as a _yes_. Viktor hadn’t even needed to ask, really.

“We’ll have the rest of your things shipped from the other house. I can put you in the Art Deco room.”

The thought of being taken care of in this way seemed to grate Yuri, who sunk into his seat with his arms across his chest. But he didn’t fight Viktor’s declaration. He needed care right now. He’d act his usual bratty self about it, but he wouldn’t refuse.

“I’d like to go back to sleep,” Viktor mused, though he guessed he would more likely be lying in bed with his coffee and meditating on what exactly his mother had done to drive away yet another son. “What about you?”

Yuri blinked groggily at him. The word sleep seemed to weigh on him.

Before he could answer, however, another voice joined them: “Good morning.”

Otabek entered the parlor, fully dressed. _This is his normal morning_ , Viktor realized, with horror.

But Viktor was distracted from that horror by a different point of interest: Yuri’s reaction to the arrival of Otabek. He froze, and all the creases and shadows melted from his face—Viktor had rarely witnessed his brother caught by such pure surprise. And then he ducked his head, as if he wanted to hide that look, clenching his jaw. He shot Viktor a glare from his hunched pose. How… fascinating.

“You two know each other, yes?” said Viktor. He could only hope for an explanation. What was it about Otabek that affected Yuri in this way?

“Yes. Through Phichit,” said Otabek. He spoke stiffly, but he always spoke stiffly. That was kind of his thing. He turned to Viktor. “You’re not usually awake this early.”

“Ah, well. It’s not a usual morning.” Viktor flashed Otabek a quick smile, and tried to smile at Yuri, too. Except Yuri had hardened over—he was staring at Otabek. _Glowering_ at Otabek, really.

And Otabek didn’t even glance at him. It was like he wasn’t in the room. “I have to head out,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll see you this evening.”

“Perhaps,” Viktor echoed. Otabek nodded and left, still without a second glance at Yuri. Had he even seen the steam coming out of those little elven ears?

Viktor sat there, absently stroking Makkachin and sipping coffee and trying to synthesize an explanation for what had just happened. He knew the two of them had some kind of prior friendly relationship—Otabek had taken Phichit to Yuri’s for dinner, hadn’t he? So what had changed between the two men to make Otabek so standoffish, and Yuri so angry? It pained Viktor not knowing. As little brothers went, Yuri was an absolute pest, and damn if Viktor didn’t want dirt on his life. Especially if they were going to be _living together_. That reality hadn’t settled in yet.

“I’m going to sleep,” Yuri finally barked, after sulking for a long minute. “Show me this stupid bedroom.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Viktor led him toward the Art Deco suite—he had worked with the designer to give each of the guest rooms an artistic theme, and was especially pleased with this one. “You know,” he said casually, over his shoulder. “Otabek is staying here right now. As my uncle Yakov’s guest.”

“I know.”

“You do? How interesting. Here’s your room.”

He opened the door for Yuri, and had it promptly slammed in his face. But he was too intrigued to be annoyed—as soon as Yuri was gone, he whipped out his phone and shot a text to Chris.

(07:16) _I have some mysterious gossip for you_


	4. birthday, boy

About five years ago, Viktor learned a horrifying truth: his good friend Yuuri Katsuki had never had a proper birthday party.

“We were always traveling and spread out everywhere, so it never made much sense,” Yuuri explained at the time, to Viktor’s genuine astonishment. He couldn’t imagine not taking advantage of a classic opportunity for self-aggrandizing. “I had nice dinners and that kind of thing.”

“But that’s not the _same_ as a party in your honor.”

Viktor knew this because he’d been having (and throwing) parties in his honor since he was ten years old. He knew how to celebrate a person, even if that person happened to be himself. But it couldn’t be too much harder to do the same for Yuuri, he figured. So that year, for Yuuri’s nineteenth birthday, Viktor put on a huge bash. He hired live music, they rented a ballroom, everyone who was anyone clambered for an invitation. It was a smash hit—Viktor had a series of photos from that night hanging in his bedroom still.

And every year since he had repeated himself. It was his biggest annual party, eventually surpassing his own birthday. Viktor knew, of course, that Yuuri enjoyed the party because it made his friends happy. Normally he didn’t like being the center of attention—too much pressure—but when you had five hundred guests for your birthday, very few of them actually knew you personally. Yuuri could therefore enjoy his party however he wanted to—he could get rip-roaring drunk (nineteen) or dance happily with his close friends (twenty-one) or sit on the roof and enjoy the city skyline while the party raged beneath his feet (twenty-three). So giving Yuuri a huge party allowed Viktor to spoil him while giving him the freedom of a night he could spend however he chose.

Viktor had booked the gallery venue months in advance. There would dinner and dancing, and he’d had a professional lighting crew and production designer set the scene. It would be understated but classy, fun but tasteful, reserved but sexy. All the things Yuuri was, his party had to be.

If only Viktor could get him into the right suit. “God, absolutely not. Take it off right now.”

“I _like_ this one.”

“Why won’t you wear the one I picked out for you?”

“The wool is too thick, it’s itchy…”

Viktor groaned. They had approximately twenty-four hours before the party and none of his efforts at dressing Yuuri were proving fruitful. He’d been sprawled out on Yuuri’s bed dismissing outfit after outfit for an entire afternoon. “Next!”

He heard Yuuri sigh and trudge back into his closet for another attempt. Viktor’s phone buzzed—he scrambled for it in the covers. A text.

“Chris is here and your housekeeper is letting him up.”

Yuuri poked his head back into the bedroom. He’d removed his glasses and Viktor gaped stupidly—he’d almost forgotten what that looked like. Yuuri without glasses. “You invited Chris over to my apartment?”

“Chris goes where I go, Yuuri. He’s nearly as loyal as Makkachin.” Yuuri disappeared into the closet again, and relief swept over Viktor. He pulled one of Yuuri’s pillows to his chest. Chris couldn’t have chosen a better moment to arrive, really—Viktor was beginning to feel restless, and he didn’t know how to handle himself when he got restless.

Their Swiss friend swept into Yuuri’s room like he’d been here a thousand times before (he hadn’t) and threw himself onto the bed beside Viktor, making Viktor squeal and roll away from him. Yuuri ran back into the bedroom, alarmed at all the noise—he’d put his glasses back on, at least—and he was half-dressed in grey suit pants and a white shirt. He relaxed at the sight of Chris settling in atop the bed, and Viktor patting down the back of his hair carefully. “Hi, Chris,” said Yuuri.

But there was something else too, Viktor realized, staring at Yuuri. “Wait a minute,” he said, when Yuuri moved to return to the closet, shaking his head. “What are you wearing?”

“Oh.” Yuuri glanced down at himself, noticed he’d only half-finished tucking in his shirt, and quickly tried to fix it. “It’s a three-piece, I was going to put on the vest and—”

“Suppose you didn’t.”

“What?”

“He’s saying you look hot,” Chris said easily. Viktor could have hit him—he made Yuuri blush bright red, and give Viktor a look like, _is he serious?_

Viktor didn’t know how to say _yes_. The best he could do was, “You should wear that. No vest, no jacket.” He cleared his throat. “Do you have contact lenses, by the way?” Never mind that he’d known Yuuri forever and was well aware he _did_ have contact lenses, he just didn’t care enough about his looks enough to go through the trouble of putting them in everyday.

“You think I should wear contacts?” Yuuri touched his glasses absently, then slid them off his face.

“It doesn’t make a huge difference,” said Viktor, picking at a loose thread on the comforter. “Just a thought.”

Chris looked up from his phone at the glasses-free Yuuri. “Hot.” Yuuri’s blush deepened and Viktor attempted to kick Chris, who gasped. “You invited me here!”

“That’s because we have _other_ things to talk about.”

“So let’s talk about them!”

A sheepish Yuuri retreated to his closet. “I’m going to put my regular clothes back on.”

Viktor had never been so happy to see him go. He refocused on Chris, whose eagerness for gossip provided a perfect distraction. “ _So_. Otabek and Yuri.”

“Tell me everything.”

“They’ve been living together at my place for a week now and I think I’ve seen Otabek say a total of two words to Yuri, and the words were ‘excuse me’ when Yuri happened to be blocking the hall.” Viktor couldn’t help the delight leaking into his voice. He was growing to genuinely appreciate Otabek for his apparent mastery of pettiness—to think, he’d once seemed so _boring_ , and now everyday he put on a show of whipping Viktor’s insolent baby brother into a rage. “Yuri is incensed. Otabek enters a room and Yuri looks ready to hit him.”

“So they hate each other?” asked Chris curiously. “But why? I thought you told me they were friendly in Milan.”

“They were! Or I think they were. I’m dying to know what happened. I think I’ll try to pry Phichit for more information tomorrow night, since he knows both of them.”

Yuuri trudged back into the bedroom. “Can you not harass Phichit about your gossip at my birthday party?”

“Please, Yuuri. You’re the only one who doesn’t like gossip. Phichit will love it.”

Yuuri made a face and Chris laughed. One of these things was pleasant, at least—it was nice to hear Chris laughing again. It’d been over three weeks since the fiasco with Leroy, and his spirits were improving rapidly, though if you asked him he’d claim he was fine all along. Call it intuition, or simply their being alike, but Viktor had a skill for seeing through Chris’s false cheer, and despite his healing there was an elephant in the room that threatened to trample them both if they continued to ignore it.

“You’ll come tomorrow night, I hope,” Viktor told Chris quietly. He cast a glance at Yuuri, hoping for support. “We’d like to have you there.”

“Of course! Wouldn’t miss it.” Chris popped off the bed to stick his head down the hall. “Do you have a drink cart or anything around here? I’d love a martini.”

“I’ll go get you one,” Yuuri said, and made for the door. He gave Viktor a deliberate look as he went: _talk about it_. Viktor stuck his tongue out, because that was about the level of maturity he could manage.

Chris wandered over to the window, which looked out over the gardens and into Viktor’s apartment. “Is that _your_ bedroom right across the way?”

“Yes.”

“How funny. Do you ever watch each other change?”

“ _No_ ,” said Viktor, insulted. “Yuuri doesn’t change with the curtains open.” Never mind that Viktor almost always did, and once they had—made eye contact, fleetingly, late at night. Viktor had continued removing his clothes, but when he looked back a second later, Yuuri was gone from the window. That must’ve been two years ago, now. They had never discussed it, though perhaps never discussing it was what made Viktor hold the memory close to his chest so greedily.

“Too bad,” Chris mused. “Could be kind of kinky for you two.”

Viktor sat in shocked silence for a good minute at the implication of any sort of _kinkiness_ between _him and Yuuri._ Chris continued to explore the bedroom, reading the spines along Yuuri’s bookshelf. Viktor briefly considered outrage—but outrage meant acknowledging what Chris had said, and he found that he didn’t have the strength. He would pretend he hadn’t heard it. Viktor Nikiforov did not get wound up about trivial little sex jokes. Viktor Nikiforov did not get wound up about _anything_.

“Leroy will be at the party. We got an RSVP from him.” Chris’s comment had made Leroy a preferable topic of conversation, which Viktor wouldn’t have thought possible. _Kinky_. He struggled not to talk through his teeth. “I wanted you to know before you went.”

Chris kept his back to Viktor, peeking into the top drawer of Yuuri’s dresser. It was a moment before he spoke. “I _was_ wondering about it… _et_ _alors_?” _So what?_ he said, and once again Viktor fought off the urge to shake him. “I’ll say hello to him.” Noting Viktor’s silence, he glanced over his shoulder. “I am fine, you know.”

“I know. I’m just making sure you stay fine.”

“Oh, please. It takes more than that to break my heart.” Viktor wished he could believe that. 

“A martini!” Yuuri announced, returning with three glasses balanced between his hands. “And a vodka tonic for you, Viktor.”

Viktor gasped happily and plucked the drink from Yuuri’s hand. “A mind-reader!” He took a sip. “ _Vkusno_ , _miliy moi_.”

“What’s that mean?” Chris asked, sniffing his martini.

“He said it’s delicious,” Yuuri explained.

“Viktor! You’ve taught him your language.”

Viktor laughed. “Not all of it.” He gave Yuuri a smile, which he returned tentatively before burying himself in his own glass. Just water for him, no doubt. He was good that way—with a few exceptions.

 

 

 

 

One such exception was the next night, the night of Yuuri's twenty-fourth birthday.

The escalation of Yuuri’s drinking came as a surprise—in fact, he’d begun the evening in a very different state of mind. When he met Viktor in front of Bedfords Walk and they climbed into the limousine that would take them to the party, Yuuri had announced that he didn’t plan to drink at all.

“Oh, a glass of champagne or two will be fine,” Viktor scoffed. As he saw it, he had a responsibility to help Yuuri enjoy the party. Particularly when Yuuri himself sought to curtail that enjoyment.

“I don’t want to take any chances. I can still have fun.”

“Will you at least dance a little?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

Yuuri kept touching his pushed-back hair, as if determined to undo all Viktor’s hard work in styling it. Viktor batted his hand away. “Stop, it looks perfect.”

“I never put this much product in my hair, it feels strange…”

“It looks excellent. You look phenomenal.”

“Thanks, I think.”

 _I think_. Viktor rolled his eyes.

Yuuri slouched back in his seat, twiddling his thumbs, peering anxiously through the darkened windows at the city streaming by. Viktor sat forward to pour glasses of the Moet set out for them. You’d expect a certain calm confidence from someone who looked like Yuuri did tonight, and while his obvious anxiety didn’t exactly detract from Viktor’s exquisite styling, it led to a distracting dissonance. You’d look at him and think, _what could be driving such a handsome man to look so unhappy? Doesn’t he own the world?_

Viktor had to pry Yuuri’s fingers open to get him to take the champagne. “Why are you nervous?” Yuuri opened his mouth, then shrugged. “At least have a sip. This is a thousand pounds a bottle, you know.” Not that Viktor really cared about wasting champagne—but Yuuri would.

And Yuuri did. He took a sip and made a show of enjoying it for Viktor. “I don’t need anything to be nervous about.”

“But you’re not usually nervous before your birthday party.” Viktor had always figured the bigger the party, the less nervous Yuuri got. That was the best thing about Viktor’s planning—he made sure Yuuri felt comfortable. If Yuuri didn’t, then he’d failed on some level. “Is there something different about this one?”

Yuuri’s gaze didn’t wander from the window. “I think I feel myself aging this year. Other years I wasn’t different, and this year… I am.”

“But you’re only twenty-four! A babe among men…”

“And I feel ancient.” He turned slightly, to smile sideways at Viktor. “Like I’ve been suspended in time for years, just… waiting. And it’s finally catching up with me.”

Viktor swallowed hard. He took a long swing of champagne, and the word _waiting_ seemed to slide down his throat with the bubbly liquid. It settled in his stomach like a rock. _Waiting._ “Well.” His grin was frantic. “No wonder you’re anxious, then.”

Yuuri caught the way his words affected Viktor. He took another sip of his drink, to force a better mood. “I probably need a change of pace. I’m sure it’ll be a great party.”

Viktor didn’t want to brag, but it _was_ going to be a great party.

By design, they arrived half an hour after the first guests had filtered into the gallery space. Rows of white paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, and massive stone vases held flower arrangements taller than Viktor himself. Oil paintings from contemporary Japanese artists lined the gallery walls—an exhibition Viktor had commissioned purely for Yuuri’s birthday, but he’d given the gallery enough money to run it for three months because, you know, philanthropy. In the corner of the gallery’s largest room—which would become a dance floor in a couple of hours—sat a grand piano, and a pianist hired to warm the room with a steady supply of jazz and classical music. He’d been instructed to give up his seat to Yuuri in a moment if Yuuri wanted to play. _Options_ , that was the theme of the night.

“Wow.”

Viktor bit back a grin at this, the first thing that escaped Yuuri when they stepped into the room together. “Yes? You like it?”

“Like it?” Yuuri echoed, somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. “Every year I think you can’t get bigger than last year, and then you…”

“So you do like it!”

Yuuri turned to him, a smile playing around his lips. “Yes… I like it.”

“Good,” Viktor declared, and dove behind him, pushing Yuuri across the room by his shoulders. “Now, close your eyes, I have to show you your present!”

He couldn’t tell if Yuuri’s eyes were actually closed, but he was distracted enough by the stunt not to notice where they were going, and who stood waiting at the end of the journey. “A present? Viktor, that’s—you got me something on top of—all this, don’t you think it’s kind of excessive—”

“Not something, _someone_.”

And then Yuuri saw them.

“Yuuchan? Minako— _Mari_ - _neesan_?”

The look on his face as the three women smothered him in hugs was well worth the money Viktor had spent on their plane tickets and hotel rooms (because their attendance had to, _had_ to be a surprise), and Viktor might have gone so far as to call Yuuri’s astonished delight priceless, if you’d pressed him. But no one did—he merely stood to the side enjoyed the sight of Yuuri reuniting with his sister and his friends, getting passed between the three of them like a beloved lost pet, found again.

There was a touch at his arm, and he turned to find Mila smiling at him. Viktor swept her into a hug before she could get a word out.

“ _Zhopa_ ,” Mila squealed, as he was squeezing her. “You didn’t even come to visit me in the hotel!”

“I was busy, I was busy, I’m _sorry_!”

“This was a ridiculous stunt you pulled.” She kept an arm around his shoulder when they broke apart. “But sweet.”

Yuuko was showing Yuuri pictures of her daughters on a cellphone. “And this was their last ballet recital… I’m worried about their poor father having to look after them by himself.” Yuuri giggled, cheeks flushed red.

Viktor murmured to Mila, “Do you think he seems happy?”

“Oh, is your vision going with your hair?”

“That was… cruel.”

She laughed brightly, and pinched his cheek. Cheek-pinching was one thing he hadn’t missed in the months since he’d seen Mila. “You did well, you _zhopa._ It’s a party. Have some fun.”

“You’re accusing _me_ of not having fun?” Viktor did the first thing he could think of to prove how fun he was: he looked for a waiter with a full tray of champagne, and grabbed them both glasses. “Here! Liquid fun.”

“Sometimes I think you have a bit of a problem,” Mila said, but she took the champagne from him without protest. “You’ll save a dance for me later?”

“Who would I be if I didn’t dance with Mila Babicheva?”

 

 

 

 

An hour into the evening, Viktor ended up in a dreadfully boring conversation about real estate, by no fault of his own. He’d simply meant to greet this man, a developer of some sort, and move on, but he got drawn into what was essentially an investment pitch and it didn’t matter how many times said, “Send your prospectus to the company offices and I’ll see what I can do,” the man kept going.

But he was rescued. Arms wound around his chest from behind. “Hello there,” said a deep, gravelly, unmistakably French voice. Chris.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he told the developer, as he was being dragged away from behind.

“How long did he talk to you?”

“An eternity, I’m sure. Thank you for the bail-out.”

Chris nodded and winked at him. Another drink appeared in Viktor’s hand almost magically—that had been a trend tonight, and he was enjoying it. The talking had slowed him down but he had a happy buzz on, anyway. Probably just as well, it was too early to be sloshed. He might miss something.

“You look sharp,” Viktor told Chris, as they found a spot to stand and watch the gallery clear into a dance floor. For next hour, the pianist would place dance-able standards, and then he’d be replaced by a DJ. The dancing gave them something easy and often hysterical to watch.

“Ah!” Chris patted his lapel. His suit was dark navy, with a grey button-down and no tie. “I took a page out of Yuuri’s book. Or, your book for Yuuri.”

Viktor smiled into his vodka. He had lost track of Yuuri in the last while—the developer’s fault—and scanning the room now, there was no sign of the birthday boy. Hm. He might’ve been in one of the smaller rooms, of course, or found the balcony that looked out over London’s night skyline, but Viktor wanted to know what Yuuri was up to regardless. It helped him measure the success of what he’d done.

And he was about to insist that Chris accompany him on a mission to find Yuuri, but he caught the gaze of someone across the room. Oh—he must’ve just arrived. Damn.

“Chris!” Viktor grabbed his friend’s arm and maneuvered him toward the next room, the one furthest from their new guest. “Would you be so good as to go and find Yuuri for me?”

“You don’t want to find him yourself?”

“No, I quite trust you!”

“What should I do when I find him?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Have him come find me in the main gallery?” He gave Chris another shove, and his friend sauntered off with a shrug.

Viktor swung around, and took off to greet Jean-Jacques Leroy, and the attractive brunette woman draped from his arm.

Leroy spotted him approaching, and cocked a grin that wasn’t quite sincere. “Viktor. Nice party.”

Viktor turned to the woman—she _was_ exquisite, even to Viktor’s biased eye. (He’d been sure of his disinterest in women since the age of nine.) “Excuse me, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

He took her hand and kissed it lightly; she let out a delighted laugh, and leaned over to Leroy: “I like this one!” The face Leroy made would sustain Viktor’s pettiness for years to come. “Isabella Yang,” she introduced herself.

“Viktor Nikiforov.”

“Isabella is my fiancée,” Leroy said through his teeth, and the mirth drained from Viktor.

“You’re engaged!” Isabella smiled and tapped the rock on her finger—how had Viktor not notice that, damn it. “When did that happen?”

“Just two nights ago,” said Isabella. _Two nights ago_. Christ. “We’re still telling all of J.J.’s friends.”

“My, and to think, three weeks ago…” Viktor opted not to finish the thought, partly because the rage in Leroy’s eyes made him want to find a closet to hide in. But it was obvious, too, that this woman had no idea about… well. She didn’t deserve casual cruelty. Neither did Leroy, come to think of it. He was just a stupid man out to prove something to the world, regardless of who he hurt in the process. “You move quickly,” Viktor finally chirped. “Amazing, I didn’t know Jean-Jacques had such a lovely lady in his life until now.”

Isabella tittered happily. “It’s funny—until a couple of weeks ago, I didn’t even know J.J. was that serious about me. I thought he had other girlfriends. Can you believe it?”

“I can’t! I can’t believe it,” Viktor wheezed, forcing himself to laugh along with her. 

“Viktor!” Viktor shut his eyes for a moment. _No._ Chris clapped him on the shoulder. “I found Yuuri! He’s right here!”

Viktor swung around—he could feel himself grinning like a madman, and threw his arms wide, making a wall between Chris and Yuuri and the couple. “Hello! You’re here, wow.” Chris blinked at him, but Yuuri, oh _Yuuri_ , always so clued into whatever shit Viktor had stirred up. He squinted skeptically. “There’s someone I have to introduce you to—it’s Jean-Jacques, and his _fiancée,_ Isabella.”

Yuuri’s mouth fell open. Chris’s expression didn’t even flinch. He looked over Viktor’s shoulder at Isabella, and… “His fiancée.” And Chris smiled warmly. “Lovely to meet you. I’m Christophe.”

“Bella,” said J.J. suddenly, before she could reply. “Let’s go get some food. Sorry, Katsuki.” He guided her away with an arm around her waist, leaving the three men gaping at their backs. Their conversation was easily overheard as they went:

“J.J., who were they?”

“No one important. Come on.”

Viktor took a deep breath, stepped back, and shook his head. He said, with the eerie calmness of a serial killer, “I will destroy him.”

Chris slapped his arm lightly. “Viktor, it’s fine!”

“It’s not fine,” Yuuri said. “Why did he say something to _me_ , and not…”

“I will destroy him,” Viktor repeated.

“Please don’t worry about it, you two,” Chris insisted, but Viktor _knew_ the expression on his face, he _knew_ what Chris was doing. The longer Viktor spent with him, the more obvious his pretending became.

“Chris—”

“Either of you want a drink?” Chris asked, his voice shrill, making for the nearest bar station. He moved too quickly for Viktor to be sure, but it seemed like his eyes were wet.

This left Yuuri and Viktor staring at one another, aghast. Yuuri began, “How could J.J…”

“I don’t know, but I’ll never invite him to anything ever again, he is _blacklisted_ , he doesn’t know what I can do to him—I’ll make his social life a nightmare—”

Yuuri’s hand on his shoulder stalled the words in Viktor’s mouth. Clearly he’d managed to stay mostly sober thus far, while Viktor felt himself teetering on the edge of drunkenness. “He’s an ass,” Yuuri agreed. “But we need to focus on Chris. What are we going to do for him?”

“He’s upset—he’ll act like he isn’t upset, but he _is_ , Yuuri—”

“I know! I know, it’s obvious, I can see it.”

“It’s my fault.” Viktor’s throat stung. “Chris—and that poor woman, too.”

Yuuri opened his mouth, his brows knit together in concern, but it took him a moment to respond. _Because it’s true and he doesn’t want to shatter me by agreeing_. Fuck—Viktor longed for another drink. His head swam.

Yuuri’s gaze skated over to the bar, and Viktor’s followed. Chris was standing there, staring at the wall, frowning deeply as he waited for his drink. The poster child for having salt poured in one’s wounds.

“Viktor,” said Yuuri softly. “I think you need to go sit down. You’re drunk.” Viktor couldn’t argue with that. He let Yuuri lead him over to a bench along the wall, and asked a waiter to bring him a water. Viktor let his eyes fall closed for a moment—truthfully, on top of everything else, he felt guilty at turning Yuuri’s birthday into… this. They were supposed to be honoring the arrival of Yuuri’s twenty-fourth year, not making him clean up other people’s messes.

When Viktor opened his eyes, there was a glass of water in his hand, and Yuuri had vanished.

He sat there in stupor for a long while. Perhaps _teetering on the edge of drunkenness_ had been an understatement. But he could see the scene that played out between Chris and Yuuri, at least: Yuuri had left Viktor and joined Chris at the bar, where he downed two shots of something brown, and then a glass of champagne, Chris looking on in astonishment. Then Yuuri grabbed Chris’s hand and led him out on the dance floor.

When Viktor asked Yuuri if he’d at least dance tonight, it was because of secret knowledge he had, from their many years of friendship: Yuuri was a _good_ dancer. Excellent, actually. He had ten years of classical ballet and five of hip-hop and ballroom. If he stepped onto the dance floor, and started to move, suddenly every eye in the room would be on him. The problem was, Yuuri hated to have eyes on him like that—performance anxiety—so he really only made the most of his skills when he was absolutely sloshed. Hence the shots.

At this point in the night, the DJ had come out, and people were flocking to dance in droves. Chris seemed bewildered by what was happening—Yuuri, clearly feeling the alcohol, was trying to walk him through a couple of basic dance moves—but his smile reassured Viktor. It was the most authentic smile he’d seen from Chris in a while, and the smile grew as the other guests started to pause and watch the two of them dancing. Yuuri dipping Chris dramatically, Chris clinging to his chest, laughing hysterically. Yuuri doing some move where he held himself up by just one hand. People clapped; Yuuri took another shot. Vodka, this time.

As the minutes went by, and Chris and Viktor danced, Viktor drank water and sobered up enough to settle down. He left the main room, weaving through the crowd, nodding at people he knew but not stopping for a conversation. There were really so many people—he had done well, in that respect. But he needed air.

He’d almost reached the balcony when a familiar laugh caught his ear. Phichit.

Viktor paused to find him in the crowd—he appearedengrossed in his conversation with… Otabek. Viktor lingered, but neither man noticed him watching them. The corner of Otabek's mouth twitched at something Phichit said. Viktor slipped through the glass doors out onto the balcony.

When the door closed behind him, he dove into silence. The noise of the party was just a low buzz at his back, and the night felt quiet, despite the sound of the city from the street below. “Shit, it’s cold,” Viktor muttered, pulling his jacket closer around him. London in late November, right.

“Do you not even swear in Russian anymore?”

Yuri. He leaned against the railing, a cigarette on his lips. He wore a leather jacket, and every item of clothing on his body seemed to have a tear in it. Of course, of all the people to end up on this balcony, it had to be him. “When did you take up the smoking habit?” Had Yuri been secretly smoking in the penthouse? It was big enough he could've hid it. Uck.

“Everyone does it in Milan.”

“Everyone swears in English here.”

Yuri took a long, unimpressed drag, and turned away from Viktor.

Viktor sighed. At least the cool air felt good in his lungs. “What’s the reason for your perpetual bad mood lately? Is this just how you are now? I seem to remember that you weren’t such a miserable child.” A lot could change in ten years, but you didn’t want it to change like this.

Yuri gave him a sneer. “Then you’re remembering wrong.” He stubbed his cigarette against the rail. “I’m leaving your stupid party.”

“It’s not even midnight!”

“Yeah, well, it’s lame.” He glanced through the huge glass windows, back into the party. Viktor tried to follow his gaze but it was impossible to tell what he was looking for, or thinking about. “I’ve got friends at a club. I’ll go there.”

“Don’t stay out too late,” said Viktor with a fake grin, as Yuuri stomped by him and back inside. The door shut and he was alone, diving into silence again.

 

 

 

 

3:30 AM. Viktor wandered back into the main gallery. He’d been on many adventures since he left this room, hours ago. Mila had accompanied him on several, and it felt for a while that nothing had changed at all, and he was happy.

The event staff were cleaning up, taking down the lanterns and the vases. Only a handful of straggling guests remained—the others had gone home or moved on to nightclubs and afterparties. Everyone left over was either very drunk or very tired; Viktor would leave the gallery security to deal with them. Except one, of course.

“Yuuri.”

A little moan from the Yuuri-shaped lump on the bench. The same bench where Yuuri had sat him to sober up, ironically. Viktor took a seat on the floor near his face, so that when Yuuri squeaked his eyes open, he was met with Viktor’s smile.

“Are you still drunk?”

“A little. I’m coming down from it.” Yuuri swallowed hard, and rolled on to his back with a groan. “It’s a long fall…ugh, _nanda yo_.”

“I’ve called the car around. I’ll take you home and get you water and aspirin and something to eat.”

“Right. I threw up twice in the bathroom, I should try to eat.”

Viktor bit back a laugh—Yuuri giggled too, so he didn’t have to feel bad about that. “It was good of you to wreck your body for Chris.”

Yuuri shook his head. “It was the least I could do, after J.J. was…” He didn’t care to finish the sentence, and Viktor could understand why. It wasn’t something that you wanted to relive in words.

“Did Chris seem like he had a good night?”

Yuuri chuckled, started to answer, and chuckled again. “He left with someone around one o’clock. And I think I kept dancing.”

“By yourself!”

“Maybe? I don’t know? It’s a blur.”

They were both grinning and giggling, and after a long night of highs and lows, giddy exhaustion ruled Viktor. “You know,” he said, a confession of sorts slipping from his lips unbidden. “I don’t deserve you.”

Yuuri’s face shifted, mouth and eyes going round. “What?”

“As a friend, I mean. You are such a…” Viktor winced out at the death of the party. “A good man. I feel considerably lucky to know you. I don’t think I deserve it.”

“I don’t know what you mean, _deserve_ it—”

“It’s my fault Leroy hurt Chris, and he’s going to marry that woman now, who has no idea why he…” Viktor rubbed his temples. He kept talking because he couldn’t remember how to stop himself. “I’ve been a bad friend lately, and it’s made me realize, I can’t remember when I was ever a good friend before—but you’re still here. Yuuri Katsuki is still here.” Yuuri was sitting up slowly, but Viktor couldn’t look him in the eye. “I’m grateful. Frankly, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I think you’re a good man.” He felt Yuuri grip his shoulder, and had to look up. His face was blotchy and his eyes red, but god, if he didn’t have a kind expression—then Viktor didn’t know what a kind expression was. “But you have to stop _matching people up_.”

“I know! I know, I’m done, it’s over!”

“Promise me—”

“I’m terrible at it!”

“You are, you’re really awful.”

Laughing under his breath, Viktor ran a hand through his hair. Yuuri’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling.

“Viktor, can I ask you something?”

_Please don’t_ , said a small, fearful voice in the back of his head.  _I couldn’t bear it_. “Of course, Yuuri.”

“What does _miliy moi_  mean?”

Oh. That. He had to laugh, though there was nothing funny about it. “It means... darling or dear. My darling.”

“Ah. Okay.”

They were silent for a moment, not looking at each other. It ate away at Viktor—he got to his feet, and helped Yuuri get to his. “Let’s go downstairs… if the limo isn’t here yet, we’ll take the Underground.”

Yuuri’s face was suddenly serious. “Viktor, you’d take the Underground? Have you ever done that before?” Viktor shook his head. He hadn’t, but millions of Londoners did everyday, so it couldn’t be difficult, could it? “Do you even know how much it costs to ride the Underground?”

“Um… ten pounds?”

Yuuri shoved Viktor away from him and made for the exit himself. “You’re right, you don’t deserve to be friends with me.”

“ _Yuu_ ri, no!”

The limousine had arrived, as it turned out, and they shared a ride back to Bedfords Walk, with the resounding moral of the evening that Viktor Nikiforov would never, ever again meddle in the affairs of other people’s hearts.

(Ha. _Right_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, just a disclaimer that I hold nothing against JJ/Isabella as a ship. If you know Emma you'll probably think I was super NICE to them, because their counterparts in the book suck super hard. I don't really like to have proper villain characters in my AU fics - I don't want someone to not enjoy the fic because their kiddo was the villain! So if you stan JJ, I hope you think he's more sad than evil here... that's how I feel about it.


	5. 12 kittens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the most ridiculous version of viktor i have ever known

“Another nurse gone, Uncle? You’re getting a reputation around town. Soon no one in London will consent to work for us.”

Yakov did not look up from the chessboard. “You know that is not true. Besides, I don’t want a London nurse, I told you. Get me someone who speaks _Russian_.”

“Believe it or not, the pool of Russian-fluent nurses who are willing to put up with you is dwindling,” Viktor sighed, dropping an olive into his martini. “But I’ll try. I’m having a few people over for lunch today, do you and Otabek want to join?”

“I hate the food you have the chef make you. And Otabek has left.”

Viktor tripped on the rug and nearly spilled martini on his tie. “ _Left_?” Granted, he hadn’t seen Otabek for a few days—since the morning after Yuuri’s party—but that was normal. Viktor had never thought he might _gone_. He’d just been warming up to the scraps of Otabek’s company.

“Gone to a hotel,” said Yakov, tapping the head of a knight. “I assume you did something to drive him away.”

“I did absolutely nothing!”

“That seems unlikely.”

But Viktor _hadn’t_ done anything aside from being his usual self, and Otabek had put up with Viktor’s usual self for weeks, so what had changed to drive him from the Bedfords Walk penthouse?

It came to Viktor in a flash of divine inspiration: “Plisetsky,” he murmured, sinking onto a chaise. So he had been right about the animosity between Otabek and Yuri, but he was no closer to deducing its cause.

Lucky for Viktor, the doorbell rang, and his arriving friends would (he hoped) provide him with enough information to solve this mystery.

He relayed the new development to Yuuri and Chris—but mostly to Chris, because Yuuri wouldn’t help even if he could.

“Hmm,” said Chris. They were enjoying freshly rolled sushi at the kitchen island. (Yakov refused to eat sushi in any circumstance.) “That _is_ intriguing. And you’ve got no idea what could have caused the rift?”

“Absolutely none.”

“I don’t know that it’s any of your business,” said Yuuri mildly.

Viktor continued, ignoring him: “I wish I had seen more at the party. But as far as I can tell, they didn’t see each other all night.”

“Oh.” Chris’s eyes lit up. “I’m not sure that’s true.”

 _New information._ This was precisely what Viktor had hoped for, that Chris saw something at the party which Viktor, in his rabble rousing, had missed. “What is it?” He leaned across the island; Yuuri frowned at the conspiracy in his tone. “Weren’t Otabek and Phichit talking all night?”

“Well, yes. And I saw Yuri see the two of them chatting and go out to the balcony. He looked quite nasty.”

“Do you mean he was angry?” Yuuri asked. Viktor shot him a delighted look. “I’m not engaging!” He hunched over his lunch, red-faced.

Chris was nodding along. “Yes, angry. He wasn’t happy about seeing Otabek.”

This explanation did not quite sit with Viktor. “He’d been seeing him everyday at the penthouse. Why would he…”

Chris shrugged. “I don’t know. But it was a unique level of pissiness, even for Yuri.” Clearly he didn’t have the same degree of investment in this asViktor, because he hadn’t just emerged from disaster as a result of his misreading interpersonal relationships. Well, he _had_ , but only because he’d followed along with Viktor. Chris had nothing to prove.

“So what upset him so much that he had to—go outside and have a smoke?” Which was where Viktor had found him. And he did seem pissy, as usual, but also… introspective?

Though Chris could only shrug at Viktor’s question, he had a strong point: whatever had happened deeply bothered Yuri. Something was _different_ about Yuri’s ire toward Otabek that night, so what had changed? What was the new element, the thing that had sent him into such a state?

And then it occurred to Viktor: “Phichit.”

Yuuri’s eyes went round at the mention of his friend. “Don’t drag Phichit into this.”

“But don’t you see? Yuri was—jealous of Otabek, talking to Phichit.” It all felt painfully obvious to Viktor, now. “No wonder things have gone bad between the two of them. They’re fighting over a _boy_.” _My God, I am a genius,_ Viktor thought.

“You think Otabek and Yuri both like Phichit?” Chris asked lightly, swilling his wine.

The suggestion agitated Yuuri. “There’s no way.”

Viktor tapped his chin, and smiled at Yuuri. “So Phichit hasn’t mentioned any flings to you lately?” 

“No! No, he hasn’t.”

“Maybe it’s a secret,” said Chris, with an eyebrow wiggle.

“It’s not—we should _not_ be talking about this.”

Viktor knew grinning would only incite more of Yuuri’s ire, but he had to grin anyway, because the thought of a real-life love triangle so delighted him. Love triangles produced drama like the Bermuda triangle produced conspiracy theories—efficiently, and to the fervor of drama and conspiracy’s greatest fans.

“Perhaps,” Viktor said. “Phichit doesn’t _know_ the spat Yuri and Otabek have gotten into over him.”

Yuuri shook his head. “You’re… you’re so wrong?”

“Phichit is a little gullible, don’t you think?”

“ _No_ , Phichit is trusting and kind, which is different from being gullible. Though I’m not surprised I have to explain that to you.”

Chris let out a low whistle, and Viktor grinned again, though this time it was more of a smirk. Yuuri might have been liberal with his criticism of Viktor, but very rarely did it feel… non-constructive, like a proper insult, as this jab had. And Viktor knew Yuuri didn’t like hearing himself say such things, which was why as soon as it left his lips, he was wincing.

“Sorry,” said Yuuri, quieter. “I just… I think you’re confusing Phichit being nice with something else.”

Chris spoke up. “I thought he might have a crush on Otabek, from the way they were talking so long at the party.”

“But that’s what I’m saying… Phichit seems like he fancies everyone. He’s nice. It doesn’t mean it’s not platonic.”

Viktor shrugged, letting his eyes lock coolly with Yuuri’s across the island. “It doesn’t mean it isn’t, either. Perhaps he’s hid how he feels from you.”

Yuuri’s silence spoke of his… Viktor didn’t want to think of it as anger, but perhaps it was. His silence contained multitudes, but all that mattered to Viktor just then was that he’d stumped Yuuri’s argument. He had gone low instead of high, sure, but Yuuri had done the same to him earlier. That was the game they played lately, fondness one moment, biting suggestions the next. The tension would have to be resolved eventually, Viktor supposed, but he didn’t want to think about how they’d accomplish that, or why it was necessary at all. He had more interesting things to ponder, things that didn’t concern his own chaotic inner life. Things like Otabek and Yuri’s rivalry for Phichit’s affection, which he’d now decided was only explanation for what he and Chris had witnessed.

Viktor left Yuuri to steep in his silence, turning to Chris, who sat there with huge eyes and a tiny smile, caught in between. “I expect you to help me keep track of everything and anything that could possible be related to the torrid triangle between the three of them.”

“Naturally,” said Chris, lifting his glass.

“And we must be discreet about it if we really want to know anything.”

“Mm, we ought to have a codename!” Viktor made a face, but Chris was already brainstorming: “We can pretend we’re talking about selecting a wine. ‘If I were him, I would choose the merlot… the flavor is so dark and smoky.’ Or for Yuri, you’d say, ‘the pinot grigio is doing well tonight. It could catch anyone’s attention.’”

“That’s not terrible,” Viktor found himself admitting. Yuuri broke from his sulking to look between the two of them, bewildered.

“Are you serious? Viktor, I thought you were done meddling—”

“This is not meddling!” Viktor pouted. “This is observing. I’m not going to get involved. I’m a spectator.” Going coy, he glanced up. “Even if I might put money on one of the horses in the race.”

“And which horse is that?” Chris asked, leaning forward suggestively.

Viktor was about to say, _Why, Otabek, of course_ , but Yuuri beat him to the punch. His tone had soured. “Viktor would never bet against his own brother.” The look Yuuri gave Viktor dared him to disagree.

Which meant that the only thing Viktor could say to keep from looking like a mighty asshole was, “I think I’ll keep my cards a little closer to my chest than that.”

Chris glanced between them, and let out a small, not quite genuine laugh. “You two are entertaining, sometimes.”

“That’s a nice word for it,” said Yuuri out the side of his mouth.

“Someone’s throwing a party this weekend, aren’t they?” Viktor asked, ignoring Yuuri yet again. “Something where all three of them will be there.”

“That cute American boy has rented out a club this Friday. Private party.”

“His name is Leo, Christophe,” said Viktor.

“I know. I just wanted to say that I think he’s cute.”

“I’ll try to make sure they all attend the party.” Viktor caught Yuuri glaring at him. “Oh, come—that’s not _meddling_. I just want to make sure Yuri and Otabek… maintain healthy social lives!”

“I’m going to use the restroom,” Yuuri announced, hopping off his stool. Viktor watched him go, sticking his chin out, refusing to feel anything less than emboldened by Yuuri’s judgment. Yes, Viktor had messed up before, but that in no way guaranteed he would mess up this time—he didn’t even intend to pull strings. He was merely… creating a stage for the inevitable to play out. A stage with a nice view for him and Chris, who deserved a little amusement after everything he’d been through. This party, the love triangle. They were acts of kindness. They barely qualified as _acts_ at all.

“Let him go,” Viktor told Chris.

“Is everything all right with you two?” Chris asked, glancing toward the hallway where Yuuri had disappeared. Viktor forced himself to smile.

“It’s peachy. We’ve got more important things to discuss. For example, what do you wear to a social experiment?”

 

 

 

 

Viktor would not have to wait until Leo’s party for the plot to thicken, as it turned out; he returned home from the day spa the next afternoon to find it thickening right in the foyer of the Bedfords Walk penthouse.

“My God,” Viktor said. “Where did all of these cats come from?”

He asked this because—as you might imagine—there were a number of small felines lounging around the entrance hall, with Yuri desperately trying to wrangle them one at a time. He’d pick up a kitten and return it to the huge wicker basket that seemed to have delivered the creatures, and another kitten would promptly crawl out. Each of the cats was a different color and wore a lavish bow around its neck—these were not rescue pets deposited on their doorstep.Makkachin stood at the threshold of the next room, barking hysterically, afraid to enter.

“Someone sent me twelve kittens,” Yuri said, scooping them up two at a time.

“ _Someone?_ You got an anonymous gift of cats?”

“The card wasn’t signed!”

Viktor trotted over to peek at the note pinned to the basket.

 _To Yuri_ ,

 _I am sorry_.

“Don’t look at that,” Yuri snapped, and ripped it from Viktor’s hands. He held the note and one of the kittens to his chest. “It’s _private_.”

“Oh?” said Viktor, allowing himself a grin. It did seem private—and quite interesting, to boot. “What about all these cats? Are they private as well?” One of the creatures batted his shoelace with its paw.

“What does _that_ mean?”

“It means, what are you going to do with…” Viktor took a quick inventory. “Eleven—no, twelve kittens?”

“I don’t know! I just got them—”

“Do I have to remind you that you’re a guest here?”

“Put together they’re smaller than that whole dog—”

The front door inched open at Viktor’s back, and a new voice asked, “Why is Makkachin barking? I can hear him all the way from my study…” Yuuri.

“Yuri has received an anonymous gift,” Viktor informed Yuuri, who squeezed through the door, careful not to let a white, blue-eyed kitten escape into the hall.

“A gift of…”

“Kittens,” said Yuri, through clenched teeth.

“A _purr_ sent,” said Viktor. A short giggle bubbled out of him. Yuri looked ready to kill him, but the ire couldn’t touch him. This was too good—an anonymous, somewhat romantic present for Yuri, with an apology in the note? He needed to call Chris immediately and discuss.

“ _Paws_ ent would’ve been better,” Yuuri informed Viktor. “But we need to get Makkachin to stop barking. Viktor, help me take him to your room while Yuri takes the kittens to his?”

“Sure,” said Viktor, though in reality he started composing a text to Chris while Yuuri half-dragged, half-carried Makkachin down the hall to the master suite.

As soon as he shut the door behind them, Yuuri turned on Viktor, a hand twisted through his hair. “ _Twelve_ cats?”

“What?” Viktor barely glanced up from his phone, but he didn’t get the severity of Yuuri’s reaction.

“What’s he going to do with twelve cats?”

“Technically they’re kittens.”

“That’s worse! That just means they’re going to get bigger—”

“Oh, relax,” Viktor groaned. “It’s a sweet gift. Yuri can keep a few and find owners for the rest.”

“Don’t you see that it’s not actually sweet to give someone so many animals they have to give them away?”

Viktor saw his point, but he didn’t like it. To think of this as anything other than a grand romantic gesture took some of the fun out of speculating. “It was well-meant, regardless,” he decided. “Yuri has mentioned missing his cats everyday he’s been here.”

“So he’s got cats back in Milan too? And now he has twelve _more_?”

“What can I say? He likes pussies.” Viktor flopped back on the bed, chuckling to himself. “Of the feline variety. Besides, I thought we were done interfering.”

Yuuri was pacing the floor. Giving him a curious look, Makkachin leapt up to join Viktor. “Expressing… concern isn’t the same as interfering.”

“So what is your big plan?”

“I don’t have a plan, I don’t know, I’m just—I’m just saying.”

“If whoever sent the gift is inconsiderate, you must have an idea of who you’re talking about.” It was a hail Mary, this comment. It could work, and he could know more; it could fail and he’d be unharmed.

Yuuri’s pacing stalled. He stared at the wall, silent, Viktor watching him intently. “Do you really want to know what I think?”

“Yuuri, you know I am always dying for your most honest opinions.”

Yuuri turned, and took a step toward the bed, toward Viktor. Admittedly Viktor felt his heart pop—the look on Yuuri’s face was unexpected, and not completely familiar to him. It was intense in a way Viktor had forgotten Yuuri could be. “I think,” he said slowly, his gaze locked with Viktor’s. “It’s none of our business.”

“Oh, _boo_.” Viktor let his head fall back dramatically. “I don’t need you. I already know what happened.” He said this before he could think about it—in truth, he only had an idea, and it was half-formed, at that. He had planned to share it with Chris first, and with Yuuri never, but the best laid plans, etc.

“And what’s that?” Yuuri asked. His voice remained oddly intense, but Viktor avoided meeting his eye, not wanting to get caught up in it.

Viktor sat up on the bed, crossed his legs, and shrugged. “Phichit sent Yuri the kittens to apologize for talking to Otabek at your birthday. Yuri is the one Phichit fancies, between the two of them.”

The intensity had melted from Yuuri’s face. He gaped. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You have to admit that Phichit is exactly the sort to send a gift as impractical as twelve kittens. The only question is how he kept from Instagraming pictures of them.”

“Why do you insist on dragging Phichit into this?”

“I haven’t dragged him into anything, he was already a part of it!”

Yuuri opened his mouth to fire back, but abruptly snapped it shut. He shook his head and turned for the door. “I’ve got to go back to work.”

“Oh,” Viktor moaned, trying not to roll his eyes. He didn’t like when their arguments ended without resolution, and it had been happening—too much, lately. “Don’t be…” But Yuuri already had his hand on the doorknob.

“I’ll see you later,” Yuuri said simply, and left.

Alone with Makkachin now, Viktor stroked the dog’s head, scratched him behind the ears. “I’m afraid this is a knot too hard for me to untie, or whatever it was the Bard said.” Makkachin sighed—Viktor chose to call this agreement, if only because he needed agreement right now.

 

 

 

 

“This is why I do not eat at restaurants, Vitya. If we were at home, I could simply stay in my library until someone arrived. Now we must wait here at this table like fools.”

Absorbed in his phone, Viktor didn’t especially mind that they’d been waiting for Otabek for ten minutes now. Indeed, he was quite enjoying himself—Otabek had selected a steakhouse for their lunch, and the scotch list exceeded expectations. “Calm down, Uncle,” Viktor said, without looking up from his texts with Chris. “I’m sure your pupil will be here soon, and you’ll be delighted, and won’t utter a word of criticism for his lack of punctuality.”

That stunned Yakov into grumpy silence for a few minutes—and a few minutes was, thankfully, all Otabek needed to arrive.

“My sincerest apologies for my lateness,” he told them, taking his seat. “I had an important business phone call that went on too long.”

“An admirable excuse,” Yakov said, more to Viktor than Otabek. Not that Viktor cared what his uncle had to say in that moment—he was more interested in Otabek. Otabek, who rose early, arrived early, was rigid by nature. Viktor scanned him, as he worried his lip and frowned at the drink list—try as he might to hide it, he did not seem his typical cool (if intense) self. He stewed just beneath the surface. _An important business phone call_. Not likely, Viktor surmised.

“I hope you’re doing well,” said Viktor, lightly, fingering the rim of his glass as he watched Otabek. “You’ve missed quite the circus at the penthouse.”

Yakov made a throaty noise of disgust. He pretended to hate Yuri’s kittens, but Viktor had seen him cozying up to the little calico one, so his distaste wasn’t to be taken seriously. He loved it.

“What’s that?” Otabek asked, not glancing up.

“Someone sent Yuri a basket of twelve kittens,” said Viktor.

He felt like a scientist observing an experiment in progress: he noted the twitch at the corner of Otabek’s mouth, and the care with which he set aside the menu, and the bob of his throat when he swallowed. It all smacked of _reaction_ —but Otabek was good. Too good for Viktor, who could see the reaction, but couldn’t characterize it. Was he angered? Surprised? Hurt? “Someone,” Otabek echoed mildly. “Who is someone?”

“We don’t know. It was anonymous.”

“No note?”

“It was unsigned. It only said, ‘I’m sorry.’”

“Ah.” Otabek twisted in his chair, and caught the attention of a waiter. “Your 16-year-old Lagavulin, thank you.”

“An excellent choice,” said Yakov, nodding vigorously.

Viktor put his chin on his fist and smiled at Otabek. “Of course, I think I know who sent it. The kittens.”

Otabek turned his head toward Viktor without looking him in the eye. He didn’t want to seem obvious, but Viktor had caught his attention. “Really.”

“Yes.” Viktor sat back in his chair, and let out a tremendous sigh. “It was Phichit Chulanont. He’s quite smitten with Yuri.”

The twitch at the corner of Otabek’s mouth stretched into a tiny smile. “You think so?”

“Oh yes. I mean, Yuri is beautiful, Phichit has said so himself. And they’re friends.”

Yakov cleared his throat. “How is it that all of you young men are homosexuals, nowadays?”

“You’ve encountered a sampling error, Dr. Feltsman,” said Otabek.

Viktor agreed with a wink and a nod. “Birds of a feather, Uncle.”

Otabek’s scotch arrived and he sipped it before delivering his response to Viktor’s speculation: “Some would find Plisetsky beautiful, I suppose. It’s his job.”

Viktor swallowed laughter at Otabek’s attempt to shrug off Yuri’s beauty—as Viktor saw it, he was doing Otabek a _favor_ , letting him know that Phichit had expressed such strong interest in Yuri, and apologized to him for giving another man attention. Otabek deserved to know where Phichit’s affections lay. Viktor hadn’t expected Otabek to… play along, as if the news didn’t shake him.

He was marvelously obtuse. It fascinated Viktor.

“Do you disagree with my theory, then?” Viktor asked.

“It’s a decent theory.” What did that sly smile on Otabek’s lips _mean_? “But it’s only a theory.”

“Do you care to offer an alternative?”

“Vitya,” Yakov grunted. “Stop harassing him.”

“I am not harassing him! We’re having a casual discussion of a mutual acquaintance’s love life.” Viktor glanced at Otabek with bright eyes, and was met by that same inscrutable smile. “Isn’t that right, Otabek?”

“Yes. Quite right.”

“I’m afraid it all makes too much sense,” Viktor sighed. “I had been wondering what brought Yuri to London so abruptly…”

Out the corner of his eye, he saw Otabek shift in his seat. “What do you mean?”

“He could’ve run off anywhere in the world, and he chose London. Why? Because someone was here he wanted to see.” Viktor leaned toward Otabek slightly, drumming his fingers against the tabletop. “Phichit. As soon as he left Milan, Yuri followed him here.”

“Do you really believe Yurochka would chase someone to London?” Yakov scoffed.

“If I remember correctly, Uncle, you chasing someone to London is how we ended up here twenty years ago.”

Yakov’s mouth fell open, and he coughed to cover it up. “Where is the waiter? I am hungry.”

Viktor turned to Otabek, who had gone silent at Viktor’s suggestion. “What do _you_ think? Surely you can understand that impetus—to run a third of the way around the world in pursuit of someone?” _You followed Phichit here too, didn’t you?_

Otabek lifted his chin and looked Viktor directly in the eye—here was a hardened expression, beyond which Viktor could see nothing, like staring at a brick wall. All he gleaned was Otabek’s brute strength of character. “He’s come here to see someone he cares for. You’re very insightful,” said Otabek, slowly, each word considered. His voice lifted on the last word, _insightful_ , as if it amused him.

Viktor felt himself smirking. _It amuses me, too,_ he thought. He lifted his drink to Otabek. “May you be as insightful as I.”

Otabek peered at the glass for a moment, then raised his own, clinking it against Viktor’s. “Indeed,” he said. “I can only hope for your wisdom.”

 

 

 

 

Viktor stood at the mirror in his massive ensuite, examining the top of his head.

“I’m too old to go to a nightclub,” he said, mostly to himself.

“You are not _old_ ,” said Chris. Viktor threw him a withering look over his shoulder.

“Did I give you permission to draw a bath for yourself?” He asked this because, as you might have guessed, Chris was currently lounging in the spa-sized tub, surrounded by bubbles, a mimosa in hand.

“You gave me permission by being my friend.”

Viktor began to turn around, and nearly tripped over a kitten who’d wandered into his path. “How did this get in here?” He plucked the tiny cat from the floor. She was black but for a white patch above her right eye. “I swear, they’re multiplying. We started with twelve and now we’ve got sixty.”

“Have you named any of them?”

“No, I’ve just been calling them ‘kitten’ and ‘nuisance.’”

“What are you going to do with them?” Chris asked, then drained his glass.

“They’re Yuri’s cats. It’s up to him.” The kitten attacked Viktor’s thumb, which didn’t hurt, but was entertaining to watch. “But they’re driving Makkachin insane, so I hope he decides soon.”

“Did you make sure both he and Otabek are going tonight?”

Viktor set the cat down on the bathroom counter, and watched her wander over to sniff at his collection of colognes. “They are. I expect it’ll be… intriguing.”

“You sound like you’ve learned something new,” said Chris, batting his eyelashes.

“Not exactly. I’ve only just started to realize what Otabek is capable of.” Their conversation at the restaurant had been on Viktor’s mind since they’d paid the bill and left yesterday afternoon. Otabek had depths he never anticipated—Viktor had always assumed he was shy, not cunning.The Otabek he suspected lurked beneath the surface, _there_ was a man he wanted to know. “I think he may put up a fight.”

Chris blinked. “For Phichit?”

“Yes.”

“Ohh. I see what you mean. That _is_ intriguing.”

The kitten came dangerously close to knocking one of Viktor’s colognes to the floor, and Viktor scooped her up to put her outside the bathroom.

“Will Yuuri be there?”

Viktor pulled the door shut. The question made him frown, but he kept his back to Chris, not particularly wanting him to know that. “I think so. Why do you ask?”

“I thought you were fighting.”

Viktor swung around, smiling forcibly. “How silly. Yuuri and I don’t fight.”

“It seems to me as though you fight quite a lot.”

Viktor’s throat felt oddly dry. “Well. You haven’t known us very long.”

“So have you only been fighting recently?” Chris asked, innocent. Viktor considered drowning him. Not _all_ the way, just enough that he’d know never to ask this again.

“As I said, we do not fight. Sometimes we disagree, but it’s never affected our relationship.” Tension was one thing, fighting another entirely. Viktor hadn’t seen or heard from Yuuri since the kittens arrived several days ago, and they hadn’t had a proper conversation since the slightly awkward lunch with Chris, but they’d gone days without talking before. They were busy—Yuuri worked, and Viktor had social engagements—none of this was unheard of. It didn’t signal any kind of long-term fracture in their relationship. Even if it had happened more often lately than ever before.

He could feel Chris staring at him. Maybe he had been too dismissive, maybe he’d come off defensive, maybe there was merit where Viktor saw none. But what was he supposed to _do_? Say, _yes, you’re right, Yuuri hates me now and it’ll never be the same and I haven’t a clue what I did to drive him away, because he’s the one person I’ll always hold onto_. Viktor could not bring himself to be honest, because to be honest was to be vulnerable. He needed the walls—they held him together.

Chris sighed, and began to get out of the tub with zero regard for the fact that Viktor was in plain view of—everything.

Viktor dropped his head back to look at the ceiling. “You could warn me next time.”

“Don’t you like surprises?” A pause, then Chris said, “I’ve got a towel on now.” Viktor dropped his head forward to meet a curious look from Chris. “I like you and Yuuri together.”

“Together in what sense?” Viktor asked, though he regretted it immediately. He didn’t want to know what Chris meant. He didn’t want to talk about Yuuri, or think about him, or see him, and he didn’t miss him, at all, not even a bit.

“Sexually.”

Viktor went pale. Well, pal _er_.

Chris burst out laughing. “The look on your face.”

“You Swiss bastard.”

“I won’t take it back. But in the moment I meant that you seem like a good fit—” He draped one of Viktor’s robes over his shoulders. “Sexually, platonically. Otherwise. In general.” Viktor considered ripping the robe away from him, but he couldn’t—move? He’d broken out in a sweat and the most he could do was discreetly wipe his palms on his trousers. 

“Your opinion is noted,” Viktor said stiffly. “Now, I’ve got to shave before—”

“Has no one ever mentioned it to you before?” Chris breezed through Viktor’s subject change.

“Mentioned what?” Viktor couldn’t control the agitation leaking into his tone, of which Chris seemed blissfully unaware.

“How the two of you look together.”

“You keep saying ‘together’ and I don’t know what you mean by it.” He and Yuuri had never been— _together_ , they’d been around one another. _I need to get ready_ , Viktor told himself, insisting inwardly. If he couldn’t get Chris to leave him alone he’d make it clear he had other things to do. He fumbled through the cabinets for shaving cream and a razor.

“I mean, if you _did_ date, no one would be surprised.”

“We’ve been friends for years.” Viktor dropped the razor and swore in Russian; it had nicked his finger. “If something—nothing has ever happened like that—”

“So you’re just not interested in him?”

Viktor’s finger dripped blood onto the white marble of the bathroom floor. “ _No_ ,” he said, too forcefully. He felt like the question had squeezed that blood out of him, and it was closing around his throat, too—he had to get it away, to fling himself in the opposite direction. He refused to give Chris the dignity of eye contact.

“No, you’re not interested, or no, you are?”

“I’m not.”

“He’s kind and smart and handsome,” said Chris, thoughtful. “He seems like someone who could be very easy to fall in love with. Maybe you wouldn’t even realize it was happening.”

Viktor wadded toilet paper against his cut, and leaned back against the counter, eyes closed. His pulse throbbed in every corner of his body. “You’re right. He’s perfectly eligible.” _Perfectly eligible_. He wished he couldn’t hear himself.

Chris spoke gently. Viktor didn’t even want to know what he thought he was doing with this conversation—if it was about him, or about Viktor, or he considered himself an independent observer. “So, you’ve never thought…”

“About Yuuri? No. No, no.” He squeezed his finger hard and pain shot up his arm. “Yuuri is—someone you stay with your entire life. I’m not interested in that.”

Viktor heard shuffling, and dared to open his eyes. “Mmhmm.” Chris had finally made his way over to the door, and threw it open. “I’m sure someone will be interested in it eventually. In him.” He winked back at Viktor. “Plenty of fish, like you say. But everyone wants to catch the biggest, juiciest one.”

He shut the door behind him, and Viktor sunk from the counter to the floor. He sat for several minutes staring at the thin red line along the pad of his finger. If he waited long enough, he hoped, it wouldn’t hurt anymore. Until then, he was strong. He could handle a little pain.

 


	6. the break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a tough chapter for me to write, emotionally. i hope you will appreciate that this is a story about personal growth.
> 
> for those of you familiar with the source material(s), i hope my interpretation isn't too shocking or off-base. i would like to think it preserves the ~spirit of the original(s). 
> 
> i will put a slight warning on this chapter for allusions to homophobia. it was my intent for it to be vague, because i don't like lots of homophobia in my fun escapist fan fic, but if you want to understand /precisely/ what happened between viktor and his mother (and what's now happened between her and yuri) - look no further.

Bottle service. Heavenly.

The only way to survive a party at a nightclub when you were twenty-seven and partly balding. Or fully balding. One didn’t care to label these things with precision.

Viktor sat in the secluded VIP room at Leo de la Inglesia’s private party, nursing a bottle of Moet and watching the dance floor writhing in near-darkness. The music thudded through the club—here, the raised room overlooking the atrium, was the only place one could hear oneself think, let alone have a conversation. Viktor had arrived alone and immediately claimed his spot on the leather sofa. Thus far, no one had joined him aside from the occasional waiter.

He didn’t mind. He’d taken a liking to being alone. One didn’t ask oneself prying questions. Indeed, in the hours since his conversation with Chris in the bathroom, he’d decided he would be spending more time alone in the future.

But he _had_ been sitting here half an hour and was, unfortunately, starting to get bored. He checked his phone—no new texts. Chris and he had decided to arrive separately because Chris had to run “an errand,” whatever that meant. He hadn’t seen Otabek or Yuri. And Yuuri, who knew if he’d even show up? He hated this kind of thing, he’d only ever gone to keep Viktor company, and he probably didn’t care about that anymore. Viktor didn’t expect to see him.

Viktor pulled himself to his feet with a sigh. Perhaps he’d go dance for a while, do a body shot off a nameless twink. Try to remember what it was to be nineteen and happy.

He was about to step into the narrow hall that led downstairs when a commotion outside stopped him—Chris tumbled into the room, followed by a harried Otabek.

“Are you okay?” Otabek was shouting. Chris’s head was down, he shielded his eye.

“Just fine!”

“I called security—”

“ _Security_?” Viktor squeaked, leaping out of their way. “What is—”

“I ran into an ex outside. He was in a bad mood,” said Chris. He lowered his hand from his eye, and Viktor saw that it was red and swelling rapidly.

“Oh dear,” he muttered, as Otabek helped Chris into a seat. “I’ll get you a drink. Vodka?”

“How did you know?”

Viktor laughed stiffly, and made for the drink cart in the corner of the room. “What happened, exactly? He _punched_ you?”

“Out of nowhere. I was completely blindsided. I don’t know what I would’ve done if Otabek hadn’t been there. It was good luck.”

Viktor glanced back over his shoulder, where Otabek was shaking his head. “It was nothing,” he insisted.

“It was something to me!”

“What did you do?” Viktor asked Otabek, curiosity stirred by adrenaline. He dropped an ice cube into Chris’s drink, and wrapped another in a napkin for his eye.

Otabek seemed to hesitate at telling the story, but Chris, his voice glowing, delved into it happily. “The guy made to hit me again, and Otabek got between us. He had him on his back in two moves.” Chris accepted the vodka and the makeshift ice pack with a grin. Viktor got the sense he was shaken by the encounter, but not _that_ shaken. “It was hot, frankly.”

Otabek cleared his throat. “Ten years of Krav Maga. It was nothing, as I said.”

“Regardless,” said Viktor, giving him a little smile. “You’re the hero of the evening. Come and have a seat.”

There was a knock at the door, and Yuuri entered, panting. Viktor declined to look at him. “I saw what happened outside—Leo is talking to the police. Chris, are you all right? Who was that guy?”

Through the open door behind him came a slow-moving, suspicious-looking Yuri, who said nothing to anyone and settled down in a chair on the far side of the room, like a sullen house cat.

“Oh, we had a fling a few months back. And again a few weeks ago,” said Chris, ever light. _How did I not know this?_ Viktor wondered—he’d thought he was fully caught up with the particulars of Chris’s love life. “I think he was under the impression we were something more than we are. And he’s got a temper.” He dropped the ice from his ever-swelling eye. “Do you think it’s going to bruise?”

Viktor, Yuuri, and Otabek exchanged a look. Yuuri laughed nervously. It was most definitely going to bruise.

“You’re lucky Otabek was there,” said Yuuri. Chris cast a fond glance at Otabek, who tipped his head modestly. A gear turned in Viktor’s mind.

“I was. You’re very right. Though I’m sure you would’ve done the same for me, wouldn’t you, Yuuri?”

“Of course, Chris.”

“I believe this has made one thing absolutely clear,” Viktor declared. “Tonight, we must get smashed. Every one of us!” Yuuri pulled a face, and Viktor pointed at him. “Yes, even you.” Alcohol struck Viktor as the easiest way to resolve matters between him and Yuuri. After all, when had alcohol ever ruined anything for anyone? _Ever_?

“Do it, Yuuri,” said Chris, shaking the other man’s knee. “You’re a fun drunk.”

Yuuri sighed, and, with the pressure of many eyes on him, threw up his hands. “I’ll have a couple of drinks. But not too many.”

“Of course not, you’re the most responsible man I know,” said Viktor, and he sauntered off to make their drinks.

 

 

 

 

Two hours later, Viktor was seated on the floor off to the side of the VIP lounge, his jacket off, sweat caked on the back of his neck from dancing, and Yuuri slid down onto the floor beside him.

“What’d you put in my drink?”

“Alcohol,” said Viktor simply. His mouth felt dry and gummy. Water would be good.

“I know _that_ , I… how much?”

Viktor turned to him and smiled slyly. “Two extra shots and enough sugar for you not to taste it.”

Yuuri moaned and let his head thunk back against the wall. “You… bugger.” Viktor could tell he wasn’t at his drunkest—not even close to where he’d been at his birthday—but the strength of that first drink had worked on him. His face was flushed, the top buttons of his shirt undone. Viktor thought about reaching out to push the damp bangs away from his glasses, but he couldn’t remember how to make his hand move.

“You want to know something I thought of?” Viktor asked, rolling his neck while he peered out at the lounge. They were not alone here: in addition to a few strangers and acquaintances, Otabek sat in on Chris’s animated conversation with Leo, and Phichit was laughing along to something shy little Guang-Hong had said. Viktor frowned at the latter of these two things—shouldn’t Phichit have been off with Yuri somewhere? But Viktor had lost track of his stepbrother, and Phichit seemed happy without him. How strange.

“Do I?” Yuuri answered.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Tell me.”

“Now that Phichit has rejected Otabek—” Yuuri made an unhappy noise at this topic, and Viktor spoke over his disdain. “—I think he has a good chance with Chris, if he wanted it.” He remembered the warm look the men had exchanged earlier, and smiled to himself.

“You must be kidding,” said Yuuri, flatly.

“I mean, _yes_ , sort of.” Viktor thought and spoke in blurs, his senses dulled by alcohol. He couldn’t have been completely serious if he’d wanted to. “But it’d be cute, you know. I don’t think it’s as awful as you make it out to be, wishing happiness for your friends.”

“It’s only that your wishes always involve pairing them up with people who they’ve shown no interest in.”

“Chris has shown interest!”

“Chris is not the most discerning about these things. And besides,” said Yuuri, lowering his voice. “You’re misreading where Otabek’s affections lie, I think.”

Viktor’s eyes widened, half at the accusation of wrongness, and half because had never heard Yuuri share a hypothesis about where someone’s affections lay. “What do you mean? You think Otabek likes another person? Someone besides Phichit?”

Yuuri snorted lightly at the second mention of Otabek liking Phichit. _Rude_. “Yes.” He gave Viktor a sideways look, eyebrow raised. “Do you really not see it?”

“See _what_?”

“Otabek and Yuri.”

Viktor blinked several times in rapid succession. “They hate each other.” _Otabek and Yuri. Not rivals, but..?_

Yuuri shrugged. “I’m not suggesting that it isn’t complicated. Just that there’s something there we don’t know about.”

“I don’t believe it,” Viktor decided, loudly, his brain muddier than ever. “If there were feelings there, why would they act so opposite toward each other? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Chris’s head turned at the surge of Viktor’s voice; he gave the two of them a smile and a wave, and got up, excusing himself from his conversation with Leo.

“Sometimes,” Yuuri murmured, “the way people feel is more complicated than it seems on the surface.”

“I don’t like that.” Viktor’s answer was practically a whine—nausea had surged in his stomach, and his head hurt, and Yuuri was making him—angry? Upset? He didn’t know what it was, only that he wanted it to stop.

“It’s just true.”

“It shouldn’t be—is it so hard to say what you mean?” The word _hypocrisy_ did not occur to Viktor in the moment, though it should have.

“Well, we know you’re the paragon of honesty, aren’t you?”

Viktor’s stomach kicked. He gripped the wall and began to pull himself up, as Chris arrived, sounding far too relaxed even with his eye swollen partly shut. “Why’re you two sitting on the floor over here? Come join the party.”

“I’ve got to go throw up,” said Viktor, in his best imitation of glibness. Yuuri didn’t look up at him.

Viktor stumbled toward the door, and out into the hallway to find the restroom. Behind him, he heard Chris say, “Yuuri, may I join you?”

Twenty minutes later, Viktor sat on a different floor, made of hard, cold tile and stinking of urine and the things that tended to go along with urine. He cringed at the smell of it, and the smell of himself, too. Cologne mingled with vomit. Delightful.

His stomach emptied, he clambered to his feet and out of the stall. There was a huge mirror above the bathroom sink, and it was with fear that he raised his head to look at his reflection. The dim lighting cast shadows on his face and deepened the bags beneath his eyes—he might’ve been a dead man walking. He pooled the faucet’s cold water in his hands and splashed it on his face. He rinsed his mouth out and dried himself with a paper towel. His head ached.

More sober now, and worse for it, Viktor returned to the VIP lounge. The room had changed in the minutes he was gone: Phichit had left, as had the small army of partygoers who must’ve been his acquaintances. Yuuri did have a point about his popularity transcending normal bounds—people seemed drawn to him. Why was it so strange to think Yuri and Otabek might’ve fallen under the spell, too?

Yuri and Otabek. What was it Yuuri thought was between them, exactly? Viktor’s eyes lit on Otabek first, where he sat alone on the couch, peering into the depths of his scotch. In two long strides, Viktor joined him, falling back so he was nearly in Otabek’s lap. Their shoulders pressed together, he felt Otabek stiffen, but he didn’t care. Viktor squinted at him, their noses close. (Viktor felt _more_ sober than he had, but he was not, evidently, all the way there.)

“Hello?” said Otabek warily, holding his drink out of Viktor’s reach.

“I am ever suspicious of you and your hellos, Altin.”

“Are you?”

“Oh yes. What does it _mean_ , your hello? What does any of our talking mean?”

Otabek slowly recovered from the surprise of Viktor’s arrival, and relaxed. “Do you doubt my meaning, Viktor?” he asked.

“Some have indicated that I ought to.” Viktor felt the strange weight of gazes on him, and when he looked out at the room, he spied Yuri— _and_ Yuuri—watching them. Yuuri cast his eyes downward as soon as Viktor returned his stare, but when Viktor turned to Yuri, he stared right back. His face went dark with anger, and Viktor… it wasn’t right, the surge of delight he felt at making his brother furious. And yet Yuri’s anger was something he could know with certainty, something he didn’t doubt, something he could _own_. It made his heart pound.

Chuckling, Viktor let himself fall back further, from Otabek’s shoulder to his lap. He grinned up at the dark, handsome angles of Otabek’s face, ever inscrutable. If he didn’t want Viktor to flirt with him, he’d done a bad job of indicating as much. That was all the invitation Viktor needed.

“Beka, the hero of the evening,” Viktor crooned, reaching up to tap Otabek’s chin. Otabek moved away, but the corners of his mouth twitched with a half-formed smile. “Yuri! My little brother. Come out from the corner and sit with us.”

In his periphery, Viktor watched Yuri pick himself up, shuffle toward the sofa, and fall into a nearby armchair. He kept the hood up on his sweatshirt, and his mouth twisted into a sneer. “What do you want?”

Maybe spurred by Viktor’s goading of Yuri, Yuuri came over to join them, too, Chris trailing behind. By now they were the last five people up here—it was late, past two o’clock. The lights would go on downstairs not too long from now.

“To talk to my little brother,” Viktor simpered, pouting at Yuri from Otabek’s lap.

“You don’t.”

“I do! What’s going on with you?”

“Viktor,” said Yuuri, suddenly, butting in. Like he always did. “Are you feeling okay? You were in the bathroom for a while.”

Viktor rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m stellar. I’ll never eat again. We were talking about Yuri. What’s going on with you, little brother?”

There was a long pause in which no one dared to speak. Finally Yuri answered. “Thinking of going home, actually.”

“Oh, a spoilsport—”

“Not from the party. Home to Italy.”

“ _Really?_ ” Viktor sat up, giving Otabek a hard shake. “Otabek, do you hear that? Yuri is thinking of _leaving_ London! What do you say to that?”

He looked Otabek in the eye with a massive smile, entirely too gleeful. But everyone would hate him regardless of how he behaved—he could do nothing right, could he? Even Yuuri, who was supposed to be his best friend, supposed to admire him, could see nothing in Viktor but flaws. So he might as well stir shit. It was easier to provoke hatred than pray to be liked, wasn’t it?

Otabek met him with a hard look—not more or less inscrutable than any glance he’d given Viktor before, but more chilling. It sent a palpable shiver over Viktor, a thrilling terror. _I’ve hit a nerve_. “He’s speechless,” Viktor said, with a little laugh.

“Fuck off,” Yuri grunted. He’d sat forward, and the hood of his sweatshirt fell back.

“That’s a rude thing to say to your brother.”

“I don’t care. I’ll say it again. _Fuck off_.”

“Why is it you’re running back to Milan? Did the boy you’re pining after reject you after all?”

“Maybe it’s because I want to get away from my shitty family.”

Viktor laughed again—outright this time, big and loud and obnoxious. Yuuri sat there with a hand over his mouth, expression severe, like he was watching a tragedy play out. Chris stared at the ceiling, eyes round. Otabek bowed his head.

“Of course, because the shitty family you’ve got back there is so much better than me?”

“Maybe so.”

“You forget that I’ve been exactly where you are now.” Viktor leaned back into the sofa, stretching his arms across its back. His lips moved, he felt them drip poison. “My mother will never love you. She stopped loving me when she found out what I was, and you’re not even her real son.” He felt his words seep through the room. The power addicted him—he kept going. “What do you think is going to happen if you go back there? She’d rather you dead than have to look at you.”

The expression on Yuri’s face was not as satisfying as Viktor had hoped it would be.

“Viktor,” Yuuri muttered, shutting his eyes, shaking his head.

Yuri stood up. His shoulders shook, but some of his rage had dissipated, oddly. He lifted his chin as if emboldened by what Viktor had said, stronger for the cruelty. And he was not looking at Viktor, but—at Otabek.

“You,” he said, through clenched teeth. “You’re just going to sit there and say nothing?”

Otabek didn’t raise his head. Viktor couldn’t imagine what Yuri expected from him, but not getting it made him angrier than what Viktor had said, it seemed—Yuri’s hands balled into fists.

“Coward.” He spat this leaning forward, into Otabek’s face. “Fuck you. I’m not doing this anymore.” He kicked his chair away and stormed for the exit. “Fuck _all of you_.”

“Yuri,” said Yuuri, hopelessly, naively, as he was storming out. “I’m sorry—”

It was silent in the room for a long moment, as Yuri’s explosion took time to dissipate, for the air to become breathable again.

Viktor knew what he’d said, he knew he would regret it in an hour, but he had no room for remorse when confusion and curiosity seized him. What had happened between Yuri and Otabek just now? He reached for Otabek’s arm, meaning to get his attention, and was shoved away brusquely. Otabek got to his feet.

“Don’t touch me.”

Viktor’s mouth fell open. He stared up at Otabek, thunderstruck.

“You’re a fool, Viktor.”

Otabek stepped over him, and rushed out the door.

“What is it people say here?” said Chris. The three of them gaped at the spot Otabek had vacated. “ _Bloody hell?_ ”

“What just happened?” Viktor snorted, almost laughing, he was in such disbelief. _You’re a fool, Viktor_. What was he getting at? Everything Viktor had said—it was the truth.

He locked eyes with Yuuri, and his still-queasy stomach sank. “ _You’re_ asking what just happened?” Yuuri sat forward, exasperation coming off him in waves. “Really, Viktor? You don’t know what you just did?”

Chris popped to his feet. “I think I’ll call it a night!”

They let him leave without complaint—Chris was not so oblivious, he’d read the situation well. Viktor felt his stomach sink lower and lower in the seconds of silence that passed between him and Yuuri.

Yuuri stood and paced the room. Viktor plucked Otabek’s half-empty scotch from a side table, and drained it in a gulp. One needed liquid courage, facing a mountain of tension, built through months of half-arguments and pregnant pauses. He had nowhere to run from it, now. No more detours left along the road.

“Go ahead and say what you’re going to say, Yuuri.” Perhaps he sounded dismissive, or barely interested. But how was he to summon genuine interest in another scolding? Everything Yuuri was going to say, he’d heard it before.

Yuuri froze with his back to Viktor. “Do you not… don’t you feel guilty? Even a little?”

“Not even a little,” said Viktor, ironic, eyes rolling back.

“He’s your _brother_ , Viktor.” Yuuri wheeled around. His eyes were full of fire like Viktor had never seen from him. So much for same-old.

“My step-brother—”

“Oh, yes, that’s a perfect answer.”

“I only said the truth he needed to hear.”

“You’ve been hurt by the same woman, for the same reason, and you’re going to chide him? You of all people understand how deeply she hurt him—” Viktor clenched his jaw past the point of pain. “—and you want to hurt him _more_?”

“I didn’t want to hurt him. It wasn’t my intention.”

“So what was? Just for a laugh?”

“He’s a brat, he’s ungrateful—”

“He’s a child, Viktor!” Yuuri shouted, throwing his arms wide. “He’s nineteen, and you are _all the family he has_ —don’t pretend there’s only one reason he picked London—you’re smart, you know better!”

“I know nothing about him,” said Viktor, struggling to keep his voice steady. “He’s a stranger.”

“That’s an excuse!”

“So what? Maybe it is an excuse. Maybe I don’t want to help him.”

Yuuri’s face smoothed over in astonishment. He took a step back. “Then you’re not the person I thought you were.”

“Well, that’s just the problem, isn’t it?” Viktor snorted. He clambered to his feet, with difficulty. But he needed something to do with his hands while enduring this onslaught, and the drink cart called him. “You believe I’m someone I’m not. You expect things from me and you’re furious when I don’t live up to those expectations.” He uncorked the whisky, poured himself a glass, and raised it to Yuuri. “Perhaps I’m just the man I’ve shown myself to be.”

“You’re not.”

The speed of Yuuri’s response stalled the glass at his lips.

“You’re not,” Yuuri said again, and took a solid step toward him. “You’re a good man, Viktor. You’re a good man who is unhappy, and you choose to get drunk and play cruel games to hide how—deeply, truly fucking miserable you are. It’s pathetic, who you’re pretending to be.”

Viktor took a sip of his drink. Too bitter, he decided. He set it down on the cart. “What have I got to be miserable about?” he asked, smiling weakly.

“I don’t know, Viktor.” He heard Yuuri’s voice break, and glanced sideways. Yuuri was wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “But it makes me miserable to see you miserable.You’re not this terrible person… you don’t deserve it.”

“Oh, Yuuri,” he said softly, reaching for his friend.

Yuuri stepped away. “No. No, I’m still angry. I just need you to understand why.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you could be such a beautiful person. A good brother, and a good friend. A good—whatever.”

“And you think I haven’t been.”

“Do you think you have?”

His answer came out heavy, though it was only one word: “No.” _I know_ , he wanted to add. _I understand_. For there was no misunderstanding the pain in Yuuri’s face, how hard it was for him to say this—and he did it anyway. Because he cared.

And Viktor cared, too. About him. About Yuri.

“I’m sorry.”

Yuuri shrugged. He seemed exhausted—and of course he did, he held all of this on his shoulders, all his concern for his friends. He held it all and heaved it away in a great outburst, and now he was spent. Viktor thought of reaching out to him again, but he didn’t want to be turned away a second time. “Don’t apologize to me,” Yuuri said. “Apologize to Yuri.”

“I will, but I’d like to apologize to you, too. For disappointing you.”

“I don’t care anymore.” Yuuri didn’t look at Viktor when he said this, and somehow that made it hurt more, dug the knife deeper into his stomach. “I don’t care, I can’t just keep…”

 _Keep doing what?_ _Say it_.

Yuuri inhaled sharply, cleared his throat. “I’m stupid. I did this to myself.”

“No,” Viktor murmured, assessing the space between them, wondering how close he could get before Yuuri pulled away.

“I did. It’s time for both of us to wake up.” He looked up at Viktor, who froze in his tracks. “I’m not going to wait for you anymore.”

“No.” This was not much more than a whisper. It was all Viktor could manage.

“I think we should take separate cars home.”

“Yuuri…”

“I need some time, Viktor.”

Viktor might have asked, _Time for what?_ He might have followed Yuuri into the hallway, and insisted on accompanying him back to Bedfords Walk. He might have fervently fought what he felt now, that this was some kind of _ending_ , the turning of a page.

But he didn’t. He watched Yuuri go. He frightened himself with his lack of resistance—he could hardly justify it, even in the back of his head, where he had justified the worst of what Yuuri saw in him. Perhaps the reason for his inaction was simply that he knew Yuuri was _right_ , not just about Viktor as an individual, but about the damaged, trembling thing between the two of them.

Yuuri needed time; he could have it. He deserved the space he sought, and Viktor had earned what he got, too: he would wait for Yuuri like Yuuri had waited for him. He had no right to complain—he understood what he’d done—he would hope only that this time apart, vague and nameless as it was, might come to an end eventually.

In that moment, watching Yuuri leave, a beast of longing sighed in his chest, stretched, rumbled. He had not felt its existence so keenly in years.

It hurt. There was no use lying to himself, pretending it didn’t. The beast of longing woke, and it tore him up inside.

 

 

 

 

(10:44) _He may not come_

(10:44) _These things take time_

(10:44) _You have to be ready_

(10:45) You’re right. And I am

(10:46) _Bonne chance_

Viktor turned his phone over in his hands. He had been waiting for over fifteen minutes, now. Texting Chris could not assuage the anxiety.

Then came the knock at the door. Finally.

Viktor sped down the stairs to the front door of the flat. He opened it without checking the peephole. There was only one person it could be.

“Why am I here?”

Yuri. Ever charming in his politeness. “Thank you for coming,” said Viktor. He stepped to the side. “Please come inside.”

“I came ‘cause I was curious. Only reason.”

Viktor had hoped his message might work that way—he had only texted a time, an address, and a calm request that Yuri meet him there. When Yuri asked what it was about, Viktor had written back, _you’ll understand when you get there_.

“Well?” said Yuri, following Viktor up the stairs from the front door. The flat occupied two floors above a coffee shop in Notting Hill—a beautiful old building, far from pretentious, but roomy and elegant. “I’m here and I don’t understand anything. Except that you’re a slippery fucker.”

“Please, Yuri.” Viktor led him into the living room. “What do you think?”

Viktor had wanted to hire his favorite interior designer for the job, but upon seeing the designs, he’d realize his taste wouldn’t do for this place. So he pulled some strings and found a younger, edgier artist for the job, and now every piece of furniture was made of metal, glass, leather, or a combination of three. Hot pink glass skulls hung from the ceiling in something that was meant to resemble sculpture.

But Viktor saw the interest in Yuri’s eyes the moment he stepped into the room. Viktor had done well. “What is this place?” he asked, almost suspicious.

Viktor took the opportunity to pull the keys from his pocket, and extended them to Yuri. “It’s your flat.”

Keys that Yuri didn’t accept, not right away. “ _My_ flat?”

“Yes. It’s entirely paid for. All you have to worry about is the monthly utilities. If you don’t like any of the furnishings, we’ll have them exchanged. You can move in at any time you like.”

Still, Yuri did not take the keys. “What are you doing?”

Viktor dropped his arm. “I’m…” He shrugged. “Making an effort?”

“Why?”

“Because I have—amends to make.” Amends that stretched far beyond this apartment, and what he had said to Yuri. But it was always one step at a time. “We’re brothers, and I’ve heard that means we’re supposed to look out for one another. And I’m sorry.” He gestured to the room. “This is… an olive branch. I don’t intend it as a cure-all, or even a bandaid. I know I can’t buy your trust.” He tried extended the keys toward Yuri again. “But I want you to stay in London, and I know you don’t want to live at Bedfords Walk. I’ve accepted that. This place is a compromise.”

Yuri finally accepted the keys, a furrow in his brow. “I haven’t heard from you in weeks, and you—you’re fucking insane, you know. I know how much flats in Notting Hill cost.” So did Viktor. He also knew that in the grand scheme of his wealth, it meant nothing.

“An apology card didn’t seem sufficient.” Viktor swallowed hard. He feared that his gesture would seem empty. “I _am_ sorry for what I said.”

“Yeah, well, good. You should be.”

“You don’t need her.” Yuri turned away from him, but they needed to talk about it—even briefly, for a moment. So Yuri would understand he wasn’t alone. “It’s a painful thing, I know. I went through it myself. But you’re better off without her. Without either of them.”

“Yeah,” said Yuri, in a low voice.

“I should’ve made that clear from the beginning.”

“It’s done now.” Yuri glanced sideways at him. “You look like shit.”

Viktor could only grin. “Thank you for noticing.” It was true, he did look like shit. He’d slept three or four hours a night in preparing Yuri’s apartment, had reduced his showers to the absolute minimum, hadn’t seen a hairdresser in god-knows-how-long. He’d come to Yuri’s place today in jeans and a sweater, both made slightly baggy by the weight he’d lost. He wore sneakers.

Guilt acted on everyone differently—Viktor had never seen the guilty version of himself before, he now realized. He had never felt remorse like this, the kind of remorse that took over your world.

“Thanks for the place.” Despite couching his words in annoyance, Viktor sensed genuine gratitude from his brother, just then. It was a new thing to witness. He smiled.

“There was one other thing I wanted to say to you.”

“Shit,” Yuri groaned. He strode over to fall back onto his new black leather couch, eyes shut.

“It’s about Otabek.”

Yuri’s eyes fluttered open.

“I am, obviously, under informed on whatever went on between you two.” Viktor cleared his throat. “But I hope—Otabek is a good sort of person, generally, I think, and I hope my idiocy a few weeks ago didn’t do lasting damage to your—whatever it is.”

He waited for a reply, but Yuri persisted only to stare at the ceiling, his eyes vacant, gone somewhere else.

Viktor dared to asked, “May I buy you lunch somewhere?”

“No.”

“So you’d like me to leave, then.”

“Yes.”

Viktor inhaled deeply, nodded, and took a step for the door. This was what Chris had advised him this morning, in a different sense: one had to be patient in asking for forgiveness. Viktor was prepared to work at that.

He paused on the top step at Yuri’s voice. “You can invite me over for dinner later in the week.”

Viktor smiled. Hope was small and fickle, but he welcomed it, even for a brief stay. “Thank you, Yuri.”

“You’re welcome. Now, get the fuck out of my apartment.”


	7. winters

Viktor left the flat in Notting Hill and walked a good thirty minutes to Kensington Gardens, where he found a cart selling hot drinks and settled down on a bench with a cup of tea. It was a gloomy day in January, meaning the garden’s fountains lacked a covering of lily pads, and its usually bustling walkways saw only the occasional bundled tourist family, but he could remember how it looked here in the summer. The bloom of the flowers and giggles of children throwing bits of bread to the ducks and swans.

“Do you really want to sit out here in the cold?”

Chris’s voice shook him from his memory. His friendsunk onto the bench next to Viktor. He wore a parka and large ear muffs, and yet he had that fixed sultry expression that was his default, which made for a somewhat comical picture.

“I’m numb to the cold at this point,” Viktor said, truthfully. After his walk here he could no longer feel his legs, and he didn’t especially miss them.

“Then we can sit here. How was your talk with Yuri?”

“Fine,” Viktor sighed. “As good as expected.”

“Did he take the apartment?”

“Yes. And he agreed to come over for dinner.”

Chris slapped his arm lightly. “That is a major victory— _une victoire majeure. Et les chats?_ ”

“Oh my god.” Viktor’s eyes grew three sizes. “I forgot to tell him to come pick up his damn cats.” Chris laughed, throwing his head back. A nearby duck, startled at the noise, took flight.

“He’ll get the cats. I’m surprised he’s gone so long without them.”

Viktor shrugged. Yuri had departed Bedfords Walk with only a small suitcase after their fight at Leo’s party; Viktor still didn’t know where he’d gone to stay, exactly. In the weeks since, he’d grown accustomed to living in the menagerie his brother left behind. But Yakov _did_ complain about the cats almost constantly. They’d have to go.

“Have you spoken to Yuuri yet?”

Chris did not ask this question casually. He knew that an argument had happened, that Yuuri had asked for space, that Viktor had respected the request. Chris had become Yuuri’s friend, too, and it drained Viktor to think that Chris might be communicating with him even when Viktor was not—so Viktor tried not to think about it.

No, this was a well-meant, gentle question on Chris’s part. The way you’d inquire after a friend’s ailing relative. And Viktor could only reply with a sigh of grief to match.

“I haven’t.”

Chris made a small noise, perhaps surprised, but nodded. “Do you… hm.”

“He asked for the time apart, and he knows it’s his responsibility to talk to me when he’s ready.” If he would ever become ready. With each day that passed, Viktor doubted more.

“Ah,” said Chris, nodding some more. Viktor struggled not to roll his eyes.

“You know something I don’t know, don’t you?”

Chris winced, and laughed under his breath. Of course. “I wish I could share it with you…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I don’t care.” This was not entirely true—he did care to know, particularly if Yuuri was involved—but he could hide that desire from Chris. He didn’t want to disrupt Chris and Yuuri’s friendship for a scrap of news. This was the person he’d become, lately: someone who lied to help his friends, rather than told the truth to hurt them. It felt odd, like a garment that didn’t fit quite right, but he was growing into it.

Chris shook his head. “I think it’d cheer you up. But you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell them I told you.”

“Them?”

“Mmhmm, yes!” Chris leaned forward as if preparing to whisper, though they were ten yards away from anyone else, and much further from anyone who would know what they were talking about. “I’ve taken a page from your book and set our friends up.”

Viktor frowned, and took a sip of his tea. “That… didn’t exactly go well for me, you know.”

“I think I’ve improved on your method, though,” Chris said, smirking. “I saw two people with a good relationship who gushed about one another, and suggested they go on a date. And do you know what happened?”

A strange feeling came over Viktor, slowly. The numbness in his legs crept up his body, into his chest. “What happened?” he asked, with hollow enthusiasm.

“They went on three more dates.” Chris sat back proudly. “Do you want to know who it is? You’ll laugh.”

Viktor forced a smile. He wouldn’t laugh. He could barely even say, “Tell me.”

“Phichit and Yuuri.”

“Phichit and Yuuri,” Viktor heard himself echo. Their names together made his ears ring.

“Yes.” Chris was smiling, preening, feeling absolutely pleased with himself. “Isn’t that incredible? And to think, they were friends for so long—wait, Viktor—where are you going?”

He asked, because—as you might imagine—Viktor had stood up and begun to walk away from the bench. His tea slipped from his hand and broke open on the ground, leaking into the dirt.

Looking back at that moment many years later, he would say he’d been possessed, gone into a trance. What he felt was nothing. It was the ringing in the ears, the numbness of the chest. His mind emptied and emptied until it imploded, collapsed in on itself, and he became vacuous—eating himself alive, from the inside out.

Phichit and Yuuri.

Three dates.

Chris grabbed his arm, stopping him from going any further in his trance. “Viktor!”

And then Viktor woke up. But it was far from peaceful, returning to real consciousness. Having all the emotion he’d just tried to expunge flood through him again, in an instant.

He wrenched his arm out of Chris’s grasp. Rage blinded him to the shock on his friend’s face.

“It isn’t incredible!”

“What?”

“Phichit and Yuuri, have you gone _mad_ , there’s nothing there!”

“Have _you_ gone mad?” Chris asked, taking a step back. It was a reasonable question, and if Viktor had been able to tell the reasonable from the unreasonable, that might have mattered.

Instead, he spat. “How could you do that? Set him up with Phichit?”

“He’s always going on about how kind Phichit is, I just thought—”

“You thought wrong. Phichit is nothing.”

“They’ve been on dates. One suggestion, and I’ve been more successful at pairing people up than you ever were.”

“No, no, you haven’t! He doesn’t love Phichit. It’s—absurd.”

“Love? I didn’t say anything about…” The confusion in Chris’s face was rapidly clearing. “My god, Viktor.”

“Oh, don’t _my god, Viktor_ me.”

“I asked you if you had feelings for Yuuri for a reason.”

Viktor’s mouth moved to shoot back at him, but nothing came out. He was out of ammunition.

Chris looked him up and down, frowning sadly. “How pathetic you look right now. I thought you were the most dignified bachelor in London.” He glanced around the near-empty park. Viktor’s anger, hideous and overblown, didn’t match the quiet of the winter afternoon. “Go home, Viktor. Take a bath. Get a haircut.” Chris turned his back on Viktor and began to walk away. “For god’s sake, handle your shit.”

Viktor stood, watching him go, panting. His huffs came out white in the cold air.

The anger faded. It always did. He wiped tears from his eyes—that happened more often when he was furious than when he was sad.

And he had been… _so_ furious.

_I asked you if you had feelings for Yuuri for a reason._

What did that have to do with Phichit and Yuuri being a terrible match? They were terrible together because… well, because…

Viktor staggered to the nearest place where he could sit, the edge of a fountain.

Phichit was as good and kind as Yuuri had always said, and Chris was right, Yuuri was the first person in line to sing Phichit’s praises. They could’ve made a natural match—they _were_ making one, as Chris told it.

But it was still terrible. Viktor didn’t get angry like that for nothing.

He got angry because if anyone should be with Yuuri, it was Viktor himself.

What happened next was not unlike when you’re dying and your life flashes before your eyes. Viktor saw, in a violent burst, everything he had failed to see for years. He saw parties, holidays, quiet nights passed reading and saying nothing much at all. He saw Yuuri at the sink in the kitchen, humming, knowing his way around. He saw Yuuri hungover at his birthday, sweaty and smiling, better-looking in his worst moment than most people in their best. He saw him laugh and sigh; he saw him doze off after a glass of wine; he saw him pinned to the ground by Makkachin’s kisses. He heard a piano, and a song he treasured. A song about love.

He remembered the pain he’d felt when he so much as saw Yuuri and Phichit _hug_. He remembered a thought he’d had, so secret he shuddered to dredge it up: _I wish that were me_.

He remembered the directionless longing that had eaten him alive since he watched Yuuri walk away. Stupidly fumbling around, trying to understand where this misery had come from, or if it had always lain dormant in his heart.

He remembered, _You know,_ _I don’t deserve you._

_My darling._

He stood up suddenly, with no attention to his footing, so that one of his feet went straight into the fountain’s icy water. But he didn’t notice. “I’m in love with Yuuri.” He splashed out of the fountain, and said it again, louder: “I’m in love with Yuuri!” He shouted it at a passing middle-aged woman with a camera, who squeaked and ran from him, crossing herself.

Viktor took a cue from her, and he started running, too.

He had never been more athletic than he needed to be, but he could jog for ten minutes back to Bedfords Walk and arrive only mildly crippled. Plus, the leg that had gone into the fountain was frozen numb from the knee down—no pain there.

He collapsed against the wall of the elevator as it took him to the top floor, heaving gasps. His head spun. The doors opened on the top floor, and he sprinted for the Katsuki penthouse.

For the first minute, no one answered his frantic pounding at the door. Yuuri kept fewer staff than Viktor, and they were _slow_ buggers too, it seemed.

Finally the door cracked open, and there was Yuuri’s housekeeper, a stout little Irish woman whose name Viktor could not have remembered if his life depended on it. Yuuri had always spent more time in Viktor’s apartment than Viktor had in Yuuri’s.

“Mister Viktor?”

“Where is Yuuri? Katsuki-kun?”

“Oh…”

“I need to speak to him,” Viktor insisted, squeezing by her into the apartment.

“He’s not here, Mister Viktor.”

“Where is he? Do you know when…”

He trailed off as he registered the interior of Yuuri’s apartment. One look and his question was answered.

All the furniture in the Katsuki penthouse had been draped in cloth. The tall windows that looked across at Viktor’s apartment, shuttered. The most valuable paintings, removed, probably to storage.

“Mister Viktor, Yuuri has gone back to Japan.”

Viktor turned back to her, slowly. “When?”

“Few days ago. We’ve just been cleaning and packing up.”

“He’s not coming back any time soon, is he?”

She might’ve had an answer to that, though he didn’t need one—he knew. She said some other things as he left, like, _Are you limping, Mister Viktor? Why are you shaking? Are you all right, Mister Viktor?_ Presumably he said something decent in reply. Told her not to worry. Found his way across the building, to his apartment, to his bed. None of it seemed worth remembering distinctly. Instead he was stuck with what he wished he could forget.

Viktor was in love with Yuuri, and Yuuri had gone halfway around the world without saying goodbye.

 

 

 

 

Lilia Baranovskaya was the most frightening woman Viktor had ever met. He adored her.

“You really are working wonders with him,” Viktor told her warmly. “This is the least I’ve heard him complain about a nurse since… since forever.”

“Of course he does not complain. What does he have to complain about? He leads a perfectly comfortable life here. He has everything he could need.”

Yakov, whose chair was positioned so he could look out the parlor window into the courtyard, merely sniffled. Lilia sat at the card table, sorting his medication. They made a nice picture. Though she wasn’t your traditional ray of sunshine, having Lilia around the penthouse had made the month of February altogether less gloomy.

“I don’t like looking at the shut windows across the way,” said Yakov, glaring. Viktor smiled faintly.

“Me either, Uncle.”

“Vitya, it looks like snow. Where is it you’re going?”

“To dinner with Yuri and Otabek.”

“What? I am not invited?”

“No, because you loathe restaurants, and I’d reckon because they want to talk about things they’d rather not have you know.” Though Viktor had been treating Yuri to the occasional lunch, this would be his first time seeing Otabek since Leo’s party. And with Yuri there too—he’d whistled to himself when he got the text. Times had changed.

Viktor would never have imagined back in November that his life would look like this, come February. Yet here he was, speaking to his brother instead of his friends, rarely leaving the apartment, spending his days on the charter for a new foundation created with company funds. Listening to every vinyl recording of _La Traviata_ he could get his hands on. Reading poetry.

No one had ever told him that heartbreak, once the ache faded, could change you for the better. He hadn’t heard from Yuuri. He’d stopped waiting for that call.

“Make sure to come home before the snow gets bad,” Yakov said, watching him lace up his shoes.

“I’ll be in good hands. Our drivers are perfectly capable of handling a little snow.” Viktor stood and shrugged into his jacket. “I suspect you’ll be asleep by the time I get home, Uncle. So good night. To you too, Lilia.” She nodded.

“Goodnight, Vitya,” said his uncle softly.

Viktor was to meet Otabek and Yuri at the restaurant, but almost as soon as the town car pulled into the road, the snow Yakov had predicted began to fall. So Viktor arrived late, and his companions were already seated with a bottle of wine.

He hesitated to approach them at first. He had never actually seen them together, just—interacting, he realized. It was striking to see two people who rarely smiled smiling not just at the same time but… at one another.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Yuri flinched hard at the sound of his voice, and Viktor had to laugh.

“Viktor. Join us,” said Otabek. Viktor slipped into a chair across from them—they’d chosen to sit on a booth on the same side of the table. It didn’t seem worth mentioning that this was what couples did in high school, not as adults.

Viktor poured himself a large glass of red from their bottle. “So? Is this a social call?”

Yuri made a face, but Otabek was all business, as he tended to be. “Partly.”

“What’s partly?”

“We felt you might be owed an explanation.”

Judging by Yuri’s expression, Otabek’s use of _we_ was forced. “You don’t owe me anything,” said Viktor, directly to his brother.

“It was Yuri’s idea,” Otabek added. Yuri seemed determined not to meet Viktor’s eye. Viktor sat back, smiling.

“Well then. I’m all ears.”

Otabek looked at Yuri and didn’t speak. He was waiting.

Viktor couldn’t pretend not to have a healthy interest in what had happened between these two men over the last six months. It wasn’t the kind of curiosity that had led him astray before—it didn’t have that same eagerness to know something other people didn’t.

Rather, it came from a place of empathy. He knew that whatever it is was had meant a great deal to both of them. The more time Viktor spent with Yuri, the more he began to think of him when they were apart. He _worried_ —a strange feeling, as Viktor did not worry about anything. But Yuuri pointed out to him that he was all his brother had. It was an easy thing to take to heart.

“Otabek and I have been dating since the summer. In secret.”

Viktor blinked. He blinked again. “In… secret?” Of course in secret—but _why?_

“I was told I’d be fired and disowned,” Otabek said, sipping his wine as if it were nothing. “As the face of my father’s company. Dating a man.”

“Christ,” Viktor muttered. “But the two of you always seemed…” Yuri narrowed his eyes, daring him. “Quite honestly, you seemed to hate each other’s guts.”

Otabek nodded. “Hiding a relationship can be stressful. You get angry. You don’t know when to speak and when to stay silent.”

“You fight behind the scenes,” said Yuri, gritting his teeth.

“You send a dozen kittens as an apology,” Otabek added.

Viktor put two and two together. The night of Leo’s party came back to him, the tension between Yuri and Otabek ever-vivid. “Yuri was angry you didn’t defend him? When I said those things about our mother?”

“Rightly so,” Otabek said. Yuri balled his napkin in his fist. “I am doing my best to make it up to him.”

They sat quietly, Otabek looking at Yuri, Yuri glaring at the tabletop.

“Forgiveness can be difficult,” Viktor said. It was his best contribution. He felt like he ought to avert his eyes, as though he were seeing something private, a moment only the two of them should share.

Yuri finally glanced up. He caught Otabek’s eye. “It’s worth it.”

“Are you dating publicly now?”

“After tonight, we will be,” Otabek said. “You are the first to know.”

“What about… the company?”

“We’ve got a place to live, now,” said Yuri, grudging. _This is because of the apartment?_ “For as long as we need. He’ll get something else and it won’t matter how much it pays. He doesn’t need the company.”

“You gave it up?”The sheer amount of money Otabek would relinquish by giving up not just his job but his inheritance—Viktor’s mouth hung open.

“I’ll be announcing my resignation to the board tomorrow morning.” Otabek _smiled_. Yuri was smiling too.

“Wow.” Viktor had never seen anyone so happy to lose many millions of dollars and a life of luxury. He couldn’t imagine—how happy would you have to be within yourself that the money mattered so little?

“Yuri wanted to tell you first because you helped us to make it a reality,” Otabek told Viktor, to the apparent horror of Yuri, who groaned and turned away. 

“You’re embarrassing me.”

“That’s what you told me.”

“I _know_ , I didn’t want _him_ to know—”

“You’re welcome,” Viktor interjected, not out of rudeness. He was shocked enough that the platitude popped from his lips without warning. He recovered himself with a shake of his head. “Though I don’t feel like I’m deserving of your gratitude, in this case.”

“But you are,” Otabek insisted. “We’ve done something for you in return.”

“What? But why—”

“Shut up and accept it, _Vitya_ ,” Yuri hissed.

“Accept what?” He could see no shopping bag that might contain a gift. Neither Otabek nor Yuri moved to retrieve an envelope with a card from their pocket. No, they just… looked at one another. Knowingly. He squinted at them. “Oh, I don’t like this at all.”

“You’ll fucking like it if you know what’s good for you,” said Yuri. Viktor got the sense that he didn’t have room to argue.

 

 

 

 

Their dinner progressed without further discussion of what Otabek and Yuri had done to thank him. Otabek excelled at keeping secrets, and Yuri seemed furious and embarrassed at himself for having done anything nice for Viktor, so he got no more information out of them.

The snow continued to fall as they parted ways outside the restaurant. The weather slowed traffic on the way home—after the car hadn’t moved in fifteen minutes, Viktor slid forward and spoke to the driver.

“You’ve got a long drive back to the garage after this, right?”

The man didn’t reply outright, but his frown answered in the affirmative. Viktor patted his shoulder.

“I’ll get out here and walk the rest of the way.”

“Sir—”

Viktor climbed out of the car and waved goodbye through the window.

Between the traffic and the chilly, wet stroll that followed, it was late by the time he returned to the penthouse. Viktor tapped the snow from his shoes, though it didn’t really matter—they were beyond ruined by now. Italian leather and city slush didn’t mix. He slipped them off in the hall before unlocking the door.

The lights in the foyer were off. Both Yakov and the staff should have gone to bed, and Viktor expected a lifeless apartment. He expected the eerie quiet stillness, blanketed in the snow falling outside the window. He expected a Robert Frost poem for his home: _Our very life depends on everything’s recurring till we answer from within._

Upon stepping inside, he found the dark, the stillness, the calm of the snow drifting down.

Yet it wasn’t quiet: there was music. For a moment Viktor thought, as a child might, _Is that the sound of the snow falling?_

But it was the piano. Someone was playing the grand piano. The notes leaked through the apartment, light-footed, peering around corners.

He knew the song by heart. He followed it toward the parlor.

Viktor heard the rattle of Makkachin’s collar mingle with the music.The lights were off in the parlor, too. The only light came through the tall windows—the moon reflecting off the snow outside. The moonlight traced the room and its contents in dull blue, including the shape of Yuuri at the piano.

Whether or not Yuuri saw Viktor standing there watching him, he continued to play. Makkachin padded over and greeted his master, and Viktor bent down to stroke him, listening. Yuuri’s song went on—the ending always managed to surprise him, no matter how many times he heard it.

The final cord vibrated through the piano and the room. Viktor stood up straight. His heart surprised him: it did not pound or rush. His hands were cool and dry. His nerves, steady. Aside from a tiny lump in his throat, he felt as ready as he ever had to say what he had to say. He didn’t fear the response he might get—he didn’t wonder why Yuuri had come back. He was here. That was enough.

Yuuri took his time looking up from the piano. His lips twitched out a little smile.

“An intruder,” Viktor murmured, smiling back.

“I was told I could wait up for you.”

Viktor drifted toward the piano. He leaned against its side, tilting his head. “I thought you were in Japan. This is not Japan.”

Yuuri ducked his head and plucked at one of the piano’s keys. D sharp. “That’s… true.”

“So you’re my surprise.” Yuuri nodded. “Wonderful. Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” said Yuuri, just above a whisper. “Yuri told me what you did for him.” Viktor frowned, a little sheepish. He hadn’t done it to prove anything to anyone, not even Yuuri.

“It was my way of apologizing.”

“It sounded like it meant a lot to him. I knew you could do it.”

And then, silence. Viktor glanced out the window. Nothing but whiteness. “Yuuri, I—”

Yuuri stood up, abruptly, stealing the words from Viktor’s mouth. The piano bench scraped the floor. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

Viktor shrunk. He heard only the heartbreak in this phrase. He would have to suffer it eventually, he supposed, but without getting to say his piece? It could save their friendship, if Yuuri said, _I love Phichit_ or _the next time I leave for Japan, I won’t be coming back_ , and Viktor held his tongue in reply. But he didn’t know if he could live with the weight of that secret always sitting on his heart. And he hated to think of choosing—to tell Yuuri how he felt, or to get to see him everyday for the rest of their lives, even just as friends?

“I’m no good at making speeches.”

Yuuri closed his eyes, and Viktor took the moment to drink in the sight of his face. It had been months since he’d seen Yuuri in person.

“I only thought—you deserved to know. Why I left. See, I went all the way back home. I ran away. And it wasn’t until I got there that I realized I had never even tried to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

Yuuri opened his eyes and looked at Viktor, his lips parted, a furrow in his brow. He shook his head slightly.“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”

 _If I loved you less_ … Viktor’s mouth reformed these words: “Love me.”

Yuuri did not seem to hear him. He was caught up in the speech he claimed he couldn’t make. His eyes roamed the piano keys as if searching for an answer in the black and white. “I know I’m not what you want… I’ve tried so hard to get away from what I feel for you. I tried to love other people. I went halfway around the world running from it.”

Yuuri lifted his head. The gaze that fell on Viktor bore the weight of catharsis. He had stopped breathing.

“But the more I do to get away, the more it hurts. So I thought—maybe if I just face it, head-on, once and for all, I can stop being in pain.” The thought of causing Yuuri such grief was enough to render Viktor speechless. “I’m in love with you.”

Viktor laughed.

It was not a safe reaction, in terms of how it could be interpreted. But it was the reaction he had, regardless—a laugh from his belly, the pure expression of delight. He laughed in disbelief. He laughed because he felt happiness so pure he’d once thought it a myth. He laughed the way you might if you’d just learned magic was real.

Yuuri, sweet neurotic too-quick-for-his-own-good little Yuuri, turned away from Viktor’s laughter. “Shit. I’m an idiot.”

“No,” Viktor managed, between giggles. “Yuuri—”

“You don’t have to be so unkind—”

Viktor caught him by the elbows and drew them together. “I’m not being unkind.”

Startled by their closeness, Yuuri’s eyes settled on Viktor’s mouth, going huge and round. “What?”

And Viktor got to say what it was he’d wanted to say for months, without fear: “I am in love with you.” Another laugh left him breathless. “I am in love with you— _too_. Also.”

God, the look on Yuuri’s face when he said it. That look was better than any meal he’d ever eaten, better than any sex he’d ever had. It was art—it was better than art. Viktor did not think a medium had yet been invented which could properly express the ecstasy of human love.

Yuuri reached up to touch his face, and Viktor leaned into the warmth of his touch, containing all the care one might use when handling precious glass.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

“Am I ever not?”

“ _Yes_ —quite frequently?”

Viktor giggled again, only proving Yuuri’s point, probably, but he couldn’t help it. He pulled Yuuri a little nearer to assuage any doubt. “I’m very serious. You…” Yuuri looked up at him in earnest. Viktor’s smile shrunk an inch. He bent forward, angling his mouth toward Yuuri’s.

He could feel Yuuri stiffen and hesitated, their faces awkwardly close. Yuuri’s eyes fluttered half-closed. It was him who finally closed the gap, and pressed his lips against Viktor’s. He clung to Viktor’s face with both hands, their trembling palpable, but his mouth seemed at ease—it was a shy kiss, but warm and welcoming and affectionate, hesitations and insecurities falling away the longer it went on.

Makkachin head-butted Viktor’s leg and sent him stumbling out of the kiss. “What the—”

“I think he’s excited,” Yuuri laughed, as the dog ran circles around them, leaping and ramming into their legs.

“Justifiably so,” said Viktor, pulling Yuuri toward him again. They quickly forgot their shyness, and kissed again, harder, without restraint. Viktor’s lips parted, and Yuuri’s mouth opened too, and they pressed into each other eagerly. At the feeling of Viktor’s tongue in his mouth, Yuuri made a deep, guttural sound and stumbled back into the piano—it sent up a clamor of random notes, breaking their kiss.

“Too much?” Viktor gasped, the both of them panting. Yuuri wrapped arms around his neck and pulled them back together.

“No—keep going.”

So Viktor did. They continued to strike random keys, kissing deeply, recklessly, emboldened by the darkness, driven by what they had both buried for years.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited,” Yuuri murmured, as Viktor kissed down his neck. Hearing this, he pulled up, and pressed his forehead to Yuuri’s.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t—I don’t want it to be like that.” Yuuri pressed a quick kiss just above Viktor’s eye. “I don’t want you to waste time feeling guilty.”

“I didn’t know, Yuuri. How I felt.” Viktor took Yuuri’s hands in his own—Yuuri might not want to dwell, and he would respect that, he would even agree—but they couldn’t move forward without clearing the air. “I don’t know how long I’ve loved you… but when you left, I wanted nothing more than to see you again. I felt like a part of me had died.” Yuuri gave his fingers a reassuringsqueeze. “And so I can’t imagine what it was like for you, watching me—flit around, all those years, acting like a fool.”

A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Yuuri’s mouth. “You did act very stupid.”

“Thank you. That was precisely the response I was looking for.” He leaned forward and kissed Yuuri’s smile. “Where will you stay tonight?” And the smile vanished. Even in the dark, the rush of blood to Yuuri’s cheeks was visible. Viktor added, quieter, “It was only a practical question.”

Yuuri swallowed and the apple of his throat bobbed. The motion riveted Viktor. “Here.” His heart skipped a beat. “And I know it wasn’t just a practical question.”

“Whatever you want,” Viktor murmured, kissing his cheek, bumping his glasses. Yuuri slid them off his face and into his front pocket.

“This is what I want.” He fitted his hand into Viktor’s and tugged them away from the piano. “Are you ready to give it to me?”

And so Viktor found himself staring at his best friend, who he loved, their hands intertwined, the light of the moon on the snow blurring their picture together. Yuuri said he did not want to dwell in the past, and he didn’t, and neither did Viktor, but his question felt like more than what it was. _Are you ready to give me what I want?_ he said, but what he meant was: _Are you ready to make it up to me, all the years I waited for you?_ And Viktor’s answer was emphatic.

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah I guess I'm gonna write sex in the next chapter


	8. simple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> turn back now if you're lactose intolerant because this is about to get cheesy as fuck
> 
> by the way, i changed the rating to explicit, just to be safe.

“I feel bad.”

“He’ll stop eventually. We can let him in later.”

With a sad glance at the door, Yuuri came to sit on the bed beside Viktor. His guilt was understandable: Makkachin’s whining and scratching to be let in would’ve instilled pity in the hardest of hearts. Only the desire for privacy kept Viktor from caving to the whimpers.

But Yuuri continued to frown at the door, so Viktor slid a hand over his knee—that got his attention, and his big brown eyes blinked into Viktor’s.

“He can wait fifteen minutes,” Viktor said.

Yuuri grinned, slyly. “Just fifteen minutes?”

“Half an hour?”

“Oh, no, that’s _too_ long.”

“Okay… twenty-two minutes.” Viktor leaned in to kiss him. This was soft, slow. Only their mouths touched. Yuuri sighed against him, sending a gust of warm air over his chin and cheeks. It left him feeling oddly vulnerable—such a sweet, honest kiss, like being naked in your affection. Despite the two months he’d spent working toward being a better, kinder person, he had never handled the vulnerability of sharing one’s feelings. With a kiss that said so plainly, _God, I love you, I love you_ , Yuuri could see every part of him. And they were still fully clothed.

Though not for long. He felt a tug at his hips and glanced down: Yuuri, undoing his belt.

“Wow,” he said, with a smile, because he was surprised, admittedly. He hadn’t imagined Yuuri would be so—straightforward. (Though he _had_ imagined what he’d be like, hadn’t he? Shit, why did it take so long to get here?) “No time wasted.”

Yuuri’s hands slowed. His eyes widened. “I’m sorry.” He sat back. “I—I’m so sorry? I didn’t mean to—” He started to stand up, but Viktor grabbed his wrist. He kept smiling.

“I was not complaining.”

Viktor felt Yuuri calm, saw his shoulders relax. The lights were off in here like they’d been in the parlor, making everything blue and soft around the edges, Yuuri included. One had to wonder how he could see much of anything without his glasses or a light, but he seemed to be doing all right. His eyes remained glued to Viktor, who reached down and finished undoing the belt himself. He slid his trousers off, letting them pool on the floor by the bed, and began to work on his shirt, one button at a time. Yuuri kept watching, frozen. His eyes glossed over.

Viktor slid off his shirt and tossed it aside, so he sat before Yuuri, naked but for his underwear. Yuuri’s lips parted—he was not just looking at Viktor’s body but _staring_ at it.

“Nothing you haven’t seen before,” Viktor murmured. The intensity of Yuuri’s gaze actually brought color to Viktor’s cheeks. He was used to being wanted, but not by… by Yuuri. By someone he wanted in return. There it was again, the vulnerability, the exposure.

“I never let myself look before.” So what, Yuuri had spent every afternoon by the pool, every trip to the sauna, every locker moment pass without a glance? He stepped between Viktor’s knees. “Not closely, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“No. I was afraid I’d…” A smile twitched over Yuuri’s lips. “That you’d know.” _Fair enough._ Because Viktor couldn’t have mistaken the look on Yuuri’s face for anything other than what it was, an expression of lust, long buried, finally allowed to breathe. Maybe if he had seen Yuuri look at him like this before, he _would_ have known, and they could’ve settled things sooner.

Not that it mattered. They were going to settle them now.

“I have a question,” Viktor said, in his best sultry voice, which may not have been very sultry at all but had the desired effect on Yuuri (he swallowed hard). “Why am I naked when you’re still wearing all your clothes?”

Yuuri gulped again. The way it made the muscles move in his throat was mesmerizing. “No reason.”

Viktor hummed curiously, and reached for him. Yuuri went limp against Viktor’s hands, as they worked to push the thin sweater and t-shirt over his head, to unbutton the top of his jeans, to slide them down his legs until he could step free.

Yuuri wore—tight black boxer briefs. Viktor leaned forward, and kissed his stomach, which was soft, the skin so sensitive he felt it twitch against his lips. He slid his hand up the back of Yuuri’s thigh and under those tight black boxer briefs, and squeezed his ass. Yuuri inhaled sharply above him, and then there was a rough touch on Viktor’s shoulder, pushing him back to the bed.

Yuuri climbed on top of him and kissed him, seemingly in a single movement. It knocked Viktor breathless, at first, but he quickly caught on, kissing back, wrapping his arms around Yuuri and pulling him close. This was a quiet, desperate, ever-moving embrace, with Viktor’s hands roaming Yuuri’s back and occasionally returning to his ass; Yuuri kissed him, again and again, a kiss for every time he’d thought of it before. He left a wet trail along Viktor’s neck and jaw.

They were both aroused by now, so that when Yuuri’s hips rutted against Viktor’s, he gasped, and Yuuri let out a tiny breathless moan—and he repeated the motion. _How stupid_ , Viktor was thinking, as his mouth fell open at the sensation of Yuuri’s erection rubbing his own through his underwear. Stupid, to be so—thoroughly wrecked by a little friction, like a teenager, like he’d never done this before.

Granted, it’d been a long time. Years. Sex is like alcohol—the longer you go without it, the lower your tolerance gets. Perhaps even fifteen minutes was generous.

There was a tiny tremor in Yuuri’s voice when it spoke by his ear: “Do you have…”

“Oh—bedside table. The drawer.”

Yuuri hopped off him briefly and climbed up the bed, leaving Viktor to palm himself through his underwear and focus on _lasting_ , until Yuuri spoke again. “I can’t see anything in there.”

With a little snort, Viktor rolled over and reached around to Yuuri to retrieve what they needed, lubricant and a condom.

“Are you sure that’s not expired?” Yuuri whispered.

Viktor clicked his tongue. “Rude.” Though when he checked the date, it was set to expire in a month, so Yuuri wasn’t far off.

Yuuri’s fingers traced up the inside of Viktor’s thigh. “You’re going to be okay if I…” He looked at Viktor through his lashes, shy suddenly.

God. Yuuri. He was _so_ —the things Viktor wanted from him. He could _shriek,_ for the frustrating carnal typhoon that overcame him. He’d been reduced to neediness by a shy glance.

He didn’t know what do for those needs except return them to how they were before: Viktor on his back, encouraging Yuuri to climb between his legs.

They kissed for another minute, a long time, because they had missed opportunities to make up for. Yuuri broke away and left Viktor trying to catch his breath. He felt Yuuri’s fingers tugging his underwear off his hips.

“Do you need to go into the bathroom first?” Yuuri asked against his neck.

“How dare you insinuate that I ever use the bathroom?” Yuuri lifted his head for the specific purpose of giving Viktor a dead-eyed look. “I’m fine,” Viktor said, more sheepish. “I’m ready.” _Ready and desperate_. He ran his hands down Yuuri’s back again, grabbing handful of his ass.

“Okay.” Yuuri laid his mouth against Viktor’s collarbone, then began to move down his chest. Viktor melted under each little touch, his eyes going half-lidded, a shuddering sigh escaping him.

The kisses stopped and Viktor shut his eyes all the way. He heard the tiny _pop_ , _squish_ of the lubricant, and felt his underwear come off. Unsteady exhales punctuated his breathing—this was really happening. Him and Yuuri and sex. Yuuri’s hand wrapped around his cock, wet and cold at first, enough to make him hiss.

Yuuri stroked him a few times, though he didn’t need to—Viktor was hard enough and not interested in a handjob. Neither of them had stopped to consider anything more casual; it was unspoken, Viktor felt, that they wanted to be together in the deepest (pun intended) sense. Yuuri did crouch forward and take Viktor in his mouth, but only briefly. Viktor sat up to help free him of the tight black boxer briefs.

Yuuri pulled off of Viktor and straightened up, so they sat looking at each other. Viktor gave him a soft smile. Perhaps he had some witticism buried in him somewhere, some flirty line he could’ve dropped. But it didn’t seem necessary. To smile was enough.

Biting at his bottom lip, Yuuri slid his hand around Viktor’s ass, a slicked finger feeling for his entrance. Viktor sensed his hesitation to push in, and stroked his stomach in encouragement. It worked: he felt the odd, not-quite-pleasant prick of Yuuri’s finger easing inside him.

In his eagerness to be fucked, Viktor adjusted quickly. Yuuri was not the deftest hand at stretching him, but he accommodated for tiny mistakes—moving too fast, the hasty addition of a second finger—by pumping Viktor’s cock and kissing him hard. Eventually he muttered a quick, “Good?” And Viktor nodded.

When Yuuri drew his fingers out, Viktor felt empty. He relished the crinkle of the condom wrapper. As Yuuri slid it on, Viktor let himself fall back to the bed, head against the pillow, angling his ass to give Yuuri the best possible access.

Fingers brushed Viktor’s hipbone. He shivered. He hadn’t noticed he’d shut his eyes, but he opened them to watch Yuuri lining himself up. In the dark, he was mostly blue and black blurs, but still handsome. He had always been handsome, though Viktor thought this was probably the best Yuuri had ever looked, naked and strong and about to—well. He didn’t care for vulgarity, even in his head.

He took the first inch of Yuuri with a gasp, “ _Ah._ ”

“Are you okay?” A hushed, urgent question on Yuuri’s part. Worry had seized him.

“Yes—keep going.” At the next couple of inches, Viktor remained vocal, this time hissing through his teeth. “Shit,” he said. “Fuck.” Yuuri pushed in all the way. _This is too much._ His face burned, thank god it was too dark for Yuuri to see the blush.

Yuuri lowered himself to kiss Viktor, who groaned in the middle of it. And Yuuri hadn’t even started moving yet. He said against Viktor’s lips, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes!”

He said it too quickly. Yuuri blinked at him. His face _burned_. “We can still stop—”

“No, it’s only—” Viktor swallowed hard. Feeling dizzy, he squeezed his eyes shut. “You feel bigger than I thought you would.”

A long silence from Yuuri. Viktor cracked an eye open.

Yuuri was clearly trying not to laugh. “Um. But you saw…”

“Apparently I have an issue with depth perception.”

At that Yuuri did laugh, pressing his face into Viktor’s shoulder. They _both_ laughed. Viktor couldn’t remember that he’d ever giggled during sex before. “You can tell me to stop if it gets to be too much.”

Viktor’s first reaction was, _it’s already too much_ , but he meant more than just this one thing. It was the evening, it was this moment, it was Yuuri himself. It was _overwhelming_. But he would struggle to admit that even to Yuuri. Perhaps this was overwhelming, but he didn’t have to be overwhelmed by it. Viktor Nikiforov did not get overwhelmed.

Then Yuuri covered Viktor’s mouth with his own, and flicked his hips forward, and Viktor had to admit: he was somewhat overwhelmed.

The phrase _love making_ was not one you’d ever hear escape Viktor’s lips. Such a phrase became superficial in its quest to elevate physical passion to some holier plane. He had never understood the impulse to describe fucking as something other than what it was, _fucking_. He would never think it necessary to distinguish—did the act change by how you labeled it? Not really.

But as Viktor lay there with his arms around Yuuri, holding him close, kissing him, listening to the sound of his breathing hitch with each thrust, he understood at least the desire to call this by a different name. He had never been like this with someone he loved before, because he’d never been in love until now, and here he was at the ripe old age of twenty-eight realizing for the first time how an emotional connection changed sex. How it made it better.

His cock rubbed between their stomachs with each of Yuuri’s thrusts, and he made little sounds in time: _ha, ha, ah._ Yuuri’s teeth scraped the skin of his neck. Blissful, that was the word—for how full he felt, for the waves of pleasure rolling over him from the stimulation of his prostate and his cock at once, for the flurry of Yuuri’s kisses and the grunting he did as he worked. It had only been a few minutes and Viktor was already thinking about coming.

The thing he found he obsessed over most was Yuuri’s body, and his access to it. Since they got into bed, there had scarcely been a moment where Viktor had kept his hands off of Yuuri, and that persisted now. He was almost clinging to Yuuri, to his shoulders and the wiry muscles of his back, feeling the sheen of sweat on his skin that plastered stray hairs to his forehead. He smoothed his palm up Yuuri’s neck and cupped his cheek. As his movements grew insistent, Yuuri adjusted Viktor’s legs, pushing his knees back until they were almost touching the mattress, his feet in the air by Yuuri’s ears. That’d be killing Viktor in his back tomorrow, but tonight it made him groan.

The pressure in his groin mounted to the point where Viktor had to, _had to_ reach between them and touch himself. He caught Yuuri’s eyes flickering down, and the little nod he gave to show he understood that Viktor was close. He gave a couple of especially quick thrusts— _shit_ , that was it—and then slipped and lost purchase. Whimpering, Viktor used the hand that wasn’t wrapped around his dick to drag Yuuri’s hips into his, nails on skin, begging. “More—” Yuuri caught himself and bucked into Viktor. “Yes.”

Adjusted for the right leverage, Yuuri sat up slightly, and started up that pace from before. Surely there was a biological explanation for why this felt so good, being full and fucked and teetering on the edge, but it was incredible enough that nothing in nature seemed like a sufficient explanation—this could not be anything less than divine or supernatural, it was so total, it took him somewhere else.

Between Yuuri filling him and the frantic motion of his hand on his own cock, he lasted another half a minute, and then the pooling heat mounted to an impasse, and Viktor came. He emptied onto his stomach and chest, and a little onto Yuuri too. He gasped, his toes curling, he scraped his nails against the soft skin of Yuuri’s hips—not intentionally, but hard enough to leave scratches. His body melted, turned to liquid. He felt he took the shape of the mattress underneath him, that he might even drip through it. In his mind there was only a faint hum, and above a whisper, _thank god, thank god._

Every sensation faded to a dull roar after that. Yuuri had to finish too, and Viktor let himself be the vehicle for that as needed—it didn’t matter, he couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to. Yuuri kissed him and he didn’t quite kiss back, but remained limp and receptive. He was just starting to remember himself, to feel his fingers and toes again, when Yuuri moaned and rammed him hard, followed by several shallow thrusts, and slumped forward into his shoulder. Yuuri exhaled noisily, and murmured, simply, “Viktor…”

Viktor wrapped his arms around the panting, spent Yuuri, and let his eyes fall closed. They lay there while Yuuri caught his breath and Viktor caught his full consciousness, because he could’ve sworn he’d lost it there for a moment. Viktor watched steam curling off the curve of Yuuri’s back, dampened with sweat. The scratching at the door had ceased a long time ago, and so the room was silent but for their breathing, and the whistle of a snowy wind outside.

After a while, Viktor spoke low into Yuuri’s ear. “I’m getting a little uncomfortable.”

“Agh! Sorry.” Yuuri pulled himself up and, with great care, out of Viktor. He rolled off the bed. Viktor watched his naked ass wiggle as he scampered into the ensuite, and heard the shower run for a couple of minutes. Yuuri emerged with a towel around his hip and wet hair. Viktor figured he ought to do the same, since he was covered in sweat and saliva and semen, and while it took genuine effort, he hauled himself out of bed.

When he returned from the shower, Yuuri had his suitcase out on the floor and was rifling through it.

“Clothes?” said Viktor, disappointed, falling back to the bed.

“It’s cold…”

“Will you lie naked with me for a little while?”

Yuuri hesitated, then left his things to join Viktor. They peeled back the covers together. Viktor slipped under Yuuri’s arm and pressed his cheek to his chest.

“You didn’t just cheat on Phichit with me, right?”

A strange, awkward beat passed. “Excuse me?”

Viktor didn’t look up to see Yuuri’s expression, mostly because he felt guilty it had taken him this long to remember and ask. It seemed unlikely—that wasn’t something Yuuri would do to anyone, ever—but for transparency’s sake, Viktor wanted to hear him say it. “You were dating him, weren’t you?”

“Who told you that?”

“Chris. He said he’d set you up.”

Yuuri laughed shortly. Viktor heard it rumble in his chest. “I mean, he _tried._ ”

“He said you went on three dates!”

“Yes, but—it just felt like when we normally spend time together. We never even kissed. After the third time, we both… laughed it off.” Yuuri’s eyes trailed over the end of the bed. “I only had it in me to be in love with one of my best friends at a time. And I told him as much.”

A strange blend of joy and guilt filled Viktor. He sat up enough to look Yuuri in the eye. “So… Phichit isn’t going to hate me?”

Yuuri’s brows flew up, and his mouth twisted humorously. “Um—no? He’ll be happy for us?” Viktor let out a tremendous sigh of relief. “I can’t believe… I always wondered if you were jealous of him.”

“ _Jealous_ is a big word,” Viktor scoffed, ignoring the warmth in his cheeks. A big word, and an accurate one.

“Ah, now it makes sense why you invented the triangle between him and Otabek and Yuri. Anything to keep him from dating me.”

Viktor grabbed a pillow and hit Yuuri across the face with it. He yelped, until Viktor swept in just as fast to kiss him. They rolled around like that for a while, kissing, giggling. The pillows mussed Yuuri’s hair—or maybe it was that Viktor kept running his fingers through it. But a good look, either way.

When they settled down again, Viktor snuck back under Yuuri’s arm. He swallowed. He was still thinking about his reaction to finding out Phichit and Yuuri were dating. Whether or not he had reason, his tantrum had been wrong, and he’d done no penance for it. “I haven’t been speaking to Chris.”

Yuuri ran a thumb along Viktor’s cheek. “We can fix that.”

“All right.” Yuuri had a way of reassuring him that felt foolproof, even when it wasn’t. Viktor snugged back into his chest. He smelled like Viktor’s own soap, but something else too, an unnamed thing. Essence of Yuuri, maybe. A pheromone designed to attract unsuspecting Russian expat billionaries.

Yuuri asked a quiet question: “Is this real?” In his voice there was a note of fear. Did he worry he’d only imagined it, after years of waiting? He did tend to get fanciful, absorbed his own thoughts.

For good measure, Viktor reached over and pinched Yuuri’s arm—Yuuri squeaked. “It _sounds_ real,” Viktor simpered.

“You…” But with Viktor beaming up at him, Yuuri could find nothing to complain about. They snugged closer, Viktor wrapping a leg over Yuuri’s hips, and fell asleep with their hands entwined.

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Viktor awoke to a still-naked Yuuri at his side, a snoring Makkachin at his feet, and a walloping pain from his back to his ass that made him groan.

Yuuri stirred at his whining. “You monster,” Viktor whispered angrily.

“Huh?”

“You threw out my back.”

Yuuri rolled away from him, his response mostly muffled by the pillows. But Viktor caught a scrap of it: “You sound ancient.”

They took their time getting out of bed. Viktor found painkiller in the bedside table and double-dosed himself. Other than his bodily complaints, it was an idyllic winter morning, the sun bright outside as it reflected off the fresh snow. The light flooding the bedroom bleached the air. Neither Yuuri nor Makkachin showed signs of stirring.

As Viktor started to doze off again—without checking the time, because who cared, really—when he caught the scent of coffee brewing. Someone was in the kitchen, making breakfast. Lilia, most likely.

Suddenly Viktor felt wide awake. He shook Yuuri’s shoulder until his eyes opened all the way. “Yuuri.”

“Why are you doing that?”

“What are we going to do about other people?”

Yuuri blinked up at him sleepily. “What?”

“About us—do we _tell_ people?”

“I… I can’t do this without my glasses on. Can you…”

Viktor climbed out from under the covers and down the bed, startling Makkachin, who leapt down and went to make a bed in Yuuri’s suitcase instead. Yuuri’s clothes from the previous night were in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed. Viktor fished through their pockets for the glasses. He felt a pinch on his bare ass, and glared over his shoulder at Yuuri, who smiled back. “Karma,” he said.

Bespectacled again, Yuuri crawled out of bed and over to the suitcase, where the clean clothes he’d picked out last night lay waiting for him, though he had to tug them out from under Makkachin. Viktor nestled back under the duvet and watched him get dressed while they talked.

“What do you mean by… ‘tell people’?” Yuuri asked, pulling on fresh boxer briefs (this pair was navy blue).

“Suppose if we went to the kitchen and my uncle was there, and he asked what was new with us.” Viktor quirked an eyebrow. “Would we tell him?”

Yuuri tugged a t-shirt over his head and had to adjust his glasses. “Uh… how are you going to phrase it?”

“I’m not going to say we had sex, if you’re worried about that.”

“I’m _not_ ,” said Yuuri, blushing. He’d been worried about it. “But—what _would_ you say?”

Yuuri had a good point: they couldn’t exactly go around announcing they were in love and sleeping together to everyone they knew, like you’d announce a pregnancy or a promotion or something. “Yuuri,” said Viktor, tapping his chin. “Would you let me buy you dinner sometime?”

Yuuri gave him a curious look as he zipped up his jeans. “Of course?”

“Good. Now we’re dating.”

Yuuri’s mouth popped open. Then he smiled. “Okay.”

Viktor fell back to the mattress and sighed contentedly. None of this had quite sunk in yet, but it was starting to. “A good boyfriend would stay in bed with me a little longer.” He felt the mattress buckle beside him as Yuuri lay down atop the covers. Viktor bent forward and gave him what was meant to be a peck, but it lingered. He couldn’t confine himself to just a second of Yuuri. When the kiss finally broke, a little light went on in Viktor’s head. “A party.”

“Sorry?”

“We should have a party. To tell everyone we’re dating.” Viktor grabbed Yuuri’s hand and shook it gently as he spoke. “We’ll invite everyone and pretend it’s a welcome back party for you. Then we’ll make a surprise announcement.”

Yuuri nodded. “And you’ll invite Chris and apologize to him?”

“Ah… yes, okay.” Admittedly that hadn’t been part of his original thought, but Yuuri—yet again—made a good point. It needed to happen. Chris had been consistently wonderful to him all these months, and Viktor had fucked up, again and again. And, if indirectly, it was because of Chris that Viktor and Yuuri were now together. They owed him. Viktor really _really_ owed him.

Yuuri flopped onto his back, nodding. “Okay then. We’ll do a party. And until then?”

“We have a secret affair and sneak around a lot for fun. What part of this is confusing to you?”

“Aha!” Yuuri poked a finger into his face. “I knew you were asking because you thought the secret thing would be sexy.”

Well. It _was_ going to be sexy.

“And because we needed to talk about it,” Viktor insisted. He rested his chin on Yuuri’s chest, and winked. “Besides, who would I be if I didn’t want to have a little fun?”

 

 

 

 

“It has been nice to have you back with us, Yuuri.”

Yuuri gave Yakov a distracted smile over his laptop. “It’s nice to be back.” Then he continued frowning at his laptop. He’d been at the stupid computer all morning, and for several hours yesterday, too. And the night before that, he’d brought it to bed with him. Whenever Viktor asked what he was up to, he’d just respond, “Work.” Whatever was going on at “work” had to be very consternating.

“Uncle,” said Viktor.“Do you agree to have the party here or not?” Viktor had repeated his question three times since sitting down in the parlor with his coffee, and each time, Yakov had favored grunting and not looking up from his solitaire game in lieu of an answer.

Finally he outed with his feelings. “I thought you were done throwing parties, Vitya.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you haven’t had one here in some time.”

Viktor struggled not to roll his eyes. He’d spent the past four months in a lull of alternating depression and self-reflection, so no, he hadn’t thrown any parties. But he’d done a poor job explaining the slump to his uncle, who was not the sensitive type. Easier, and not entirely untrue, to let him think Viktor had lost interest in the lifestyle.

The explanation he went with was, “This one is different.”

Yakov grunted yet again. “How—no, I don’t want to know. Have it as long as I don’t have to attend.”

“But we were hoping you’d come.”

“We?”

“Yes. It’s a party to welcome Yuuri back to London.” Viktor looked to Yuuri, hoping for a smile, but he didn’t glance up from his computer. He chewed his lip, brow furrowed tightly. Hmm.

Heels clicking, Lilia blew into the parlor. “Yakov, it is time for your medication.”

“Oh, hell.”

The two of them proceeded to argue about the meds in Russian as Lilia wheeled him out of the room. Viktor didn’t listen closely: he was more interested in Yuuri’s obvious distress.

He took a sip of coffee. After a moment, he dared to ask, “Everything all right?” Yuuri didn’t seem to hear him. Sighing, Viktor got up and moved to the sofa beside him. Yuuri started, flinching to close his laptop half-way. So Viktor couldn’t see what he was doing? Hmm.

“Sorry.”

“What are you up to?” Viktor asked, quite calm, prepared to sit back with his coffee and wait as long as necessary for Yuuri to explain himself. “Is it erotic? We should be looking together.”

Yuuri didn’t laugh or even pull a face. Not a good sign. “Uh. It’s fine…”

“It doesn’t seem fine.”

Yuuri squeezed his eyes shut. “No. You’re right. It’s not fine.” He shut his computer and slid it off his lap, then shifted his seat to face Viktor. The furrow in his brow persisted. Viktor’s stomach sank. “So I’ve been working on this big project for the company. A luxury resort in Hasetsu, where my family is originally from. It’s a big operation, the biggest I’ve ever been in charge of—it’s going to change their entire tourism industry, the local economy.” He paused to take a deep breath. “But since I left problems are mounting up? I get constant emails asking me to make decisions I can’t possibly make based on just blueprints and pictures. There are conversations we need to be having at the site, not—over the phone, with a time difference.”

Viktor was sincerely awestruck by how much Yuuri had taken on. In the past week they’d talked constantly, but never about Yuuri’s work. Viktor didn’t know it was so involved. “That sounds… extremely stressful.” Yuuri nodded. He snatched up Viktor’s hand in his own and squeezed it tight. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Viktor felt he was becoming quite the expert in helping Yuuri relax.

Yuuri gave a tiny shake of his head. “It’s not that simple.”

“No?”

“No.” Yuuri bit his lip. “I think I need to go back home. To Japan.”

Oh. The wave of dismay that washed over Viktor was unpleasant, but brief, at least. “Well—that’s all right. Go back for a few weeks, and we’ll postpone your party until you return. I can come with you, even!”

Still Yuuri did not smile. “A project like this takes years to complete, and we haven’t broken ground yet.”

A nervous laugh burst from Viktor. He didn’t like this. “What are you saying?”

“Our London properties are established. They don’t need me, and now that I’m done with university—my father is in talks to sell the penthouse.”

Sell the penthouse.

Viktor glanced out across the courtyard. The windows across the way were still shuttered. He couldn’t remember a time in his life where that apartment hadn’t belong to the Katsukis. It was a fixture in his life just as Yuuri was—an extension of Yuuri’s presence. Bedfords Walk tied them together, always.

“No apartment in London anymore,” said Viktor softly. Yuuri nodded. “And then what?”

It visibly pained Yuuri to have to say this outright, but Viktor did not want to guess or surmise, not with the stakes so high. Yuuri had to _say_ it. “Then I go to Japan. And I don’t come back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am writing this very fast I KNOW, but i want to, uh, finish it


	9. moving on

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

It was not an answer that soothed Viktor. He lay with his cheek in the crook of Yuuri’s arm, not dozing off. Every night for the past week they’d lain like this before falling asleep—arms around each other in the warm comfortable privacy of Viktor’s bed, Makkachin curled up at their feet. Viktor had thought it was the start of a new routine. The two of them, side-by-side, quiet. Peaceful.

But tonight it didn’t feel peaceful. Yuuri’s decision from that afternoon hung in the air above the bed, creaking, threatening to fall and crush them.

“You have options,” said Yuuri softly, at Viktor’s grave silence.

“And what are those?”

“Well.” Viktor glanced up and watched Yuuri pull his bottom lip between his teeth. “We could… we could postpone.”

“Postpone what?”

Yuuri hesitated. He did not want to say it. “Us?”

Viktor snorted. What did Yuuri think, that they could put an indefinite pin in this, after having _just_ worked things out? They would be consigning themselves to the same deprived misery they’d endured for the past four or five years of pining for one another. “Out of the question. Next option.”

He could hear the sign of relief in Yuuri’s voice when he said, “Okay. The next option would be… long distance.” Hm. Right. _That_. Viktor had never been in such a relationship because he’d never found anyone who was—worth the trouble. Because it did seem like a lot of trouble. Frustrating, helpless trouble, like longing to hold one another, desperately missing the sight of a face, something he was truly bored of by now. They wouldn’t be able to sit like they were now. And he’d miss it.

“Is there a third option?” Before Yuuri could answer, he added, “Is it that you let someone else do the dirty work on the resort and spend the rest of your life goofing off with me?”

“I like working!” Viktor pouted, but he’d known it was a desperate move. “It’s okay for some people to be hands off,” Yuuri continued, obviously talking about Viktor, who made a face. “But I don’t like feeling like other people are earning my money for me. I want to take over the company when my father retires.”

No one ever tells you it’s going to be hard to love someone with ambition—or perhaps this was a selfish thought on Viktor’s part. He wished that Yuuri could be content to live like he did, enjoying the best parts of wealth and letting others make the difficult decisions on his behalf, but if Yuuri had been content with that, he wouldn’t have been Yuuri. And Viktor might not have loved him at all.

“So what _is_ the third option, if not that?”

“You move to Hasetsu with me.”

Viktor sat up. Of course that was the third option, why hadn’t he thought of it? Why was he so startled to hear Yuuri say those words? “Move to Hasetsu? In— _Japan_?”

“Yes…”

“But it’s far. And I haven’t got anywhere to live. And what about Makkachin? He’s never been on a plane that long. And I don’t speak a lick of Japanese, you know—I don’t even know what the weather is like.”

His outpouring of concerns was met with silence, and he glanced down at Yuuri, who had thrown his arm over his eyes. “I guess we can go with long distance, then.” He cleared his throat.

That was far from satisfactory, as replies went. “You didn’t answer any of my questions.”

Yuuri lowered his arm an inch so he could peek up at Viktor. “Those were real questions? It sounded like a list of reasons not to consider it.”

“They weren’t,” Viktor realized. His heart had started to pound. Moving to Japan—how could he consider that? But he _could_ consider it, it was so easy to consider, he’d already begun.

“I think you could probably afford to buy all of Hasetsu, if you wanted,” Yuuri said, slowly sitting up. “And you could charter a private plane to get there, and Makkachin could ride in the cabin with you. And most people speak a little English, and I could start teaching you Japanese…”

“What about the weather?” Viktor asked. He was getting excited, now.

“Nice? A little warmer than it is here.”

“That’s perfect!”

A smile broke out on Yuuri’s face. It was sinking in that Viktor might not be so opposed to this as he initially seemed.

“I could see Mila all the time.” Viktor laughed at the epiphany. He could see it all clearly, opening up before him—a luxurious house on the water, with all the quiet and clean air of nature that London could never offer, and Yuuri. He’d have fruity cocktails and Japanese delicacies and enjoy them on the beach and at five o’clock, Yuuri would come home to him. They would have houseguests from everywhere, friends coming to share in their slice of paradise. They would celebrate in Yuuri’s professional successes, together, like Viktor was some kind of plumped-up trophy husband, a thought that delighted him.

There was only one small problem with this picture. Something missing, which Viktor had forgotten, and now remembered when faced with the nagging feeling that he had not got it quite right.

“But what about my uncle?”

The smile slid from Yuuri’s face. “Yakov?”

“He’ll never agree to move to Japan. He’s old, it would be too much for him. The language and the travel…”

“You’re right.” Yuuri pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“He’s done so much for me over the years—when my mother decided she didn’t want…” It was difficult for Viktor to relive by repetition, so he left it at that. “I have to take care of him.” In all his meddling and mistakes, Viktor had never faltered in his devotion to his uncle, had never even considered it.

“I know. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.” Yuuri laid his head on Viktor’s shoulder. His cheek was warm and its weight comforting, even if he didn’t have answers.

“Then I suppose we’ll have to figure it out,” Viktor sighed.

“You could just… talk to him about it. Maybe he’d want you to go.”

“Maybe.” That was narrowly possible, but only narrowly. He struggled to imagine Yakov, upon hearing he’d taken up with Yuuri, say in his booming voice, _Why of course you ought to move to Japan!_ Viktor cleared his throat. “Regardless, we’ll figure something else.” He pecked the top of Yuuri’s head. “I refuse to let you get away.”

 

 

 

 

The day of Yuuri’s so-called “welcome back” party—which they had decided not to rename, for fear of alarming their friends—saw the Bedfords Walk penthouse as busy as it had been in months. And the party wasn’t set to begin for another two hours.

Though it wasn’t a large gathering (only about twenty people, essentially a dinner party), Viktor had outdone himself with the decoration, and the five-star gourmet food was to be served in six courses on literal silver platters. The apartment had smelled of gently roasting garlic and fresh-cut flowers—a strange by not unpleasant combination—since early that afternoon.

“Do you need me to help you get dressed, Uncle?”

“No need,” said Lilia, sweeping in to push Yakov’s chair. “I will take care of it.”

Viktor watched them go, then turned back to the flower arrangement he’d been fussing over. He was noticing more and more how much Lilia did for his uncle—even things that extended beyond the exact parameters of her job description, like helping him pick out a tie, or explaining an English colloquialism he misunderstood. Viktor had begun to suspect that she was quite fond of him, as strangely as she showed it, but she wasn’t the sort to dote _normally_ , was she? And what’s more, he’d realized how little he contributed to caring for his uncle nowadays. Which made leaving an emotional challenge for both of them, rather than a practical one. Viktor would’ve preferred practical.

He expected the conversation with his uncle after he and Yuuri announced their relationship tonight would be appropriately emotional and difficult, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Viktor!”

Viktor could tell from the cadence of Yuuri’s shout that he was in the midst of a panic attack. “Oh, Lord.” Yuuri had been in the midst of a panic attack on and off for days leading up to the party. He kept finding details to obsess over, and as he tore into the parlor now, he looked like he’d escaped from a prison, or a particularly dense rainforest, and was running around trying to catch his bearings. He clutched a stack of notecards in his hand.

This was his way of handling the stress, Viktor understood—take all his nervous energy and channel it into the details—but it wore on Viktor when he was also stressed. He took Yuuri by the shoulders.

“Before you speak, I need you to utter these words: ‘It is not as bad as I think it is.’”

Yuuri whined through his teeth, but Viktor’s expression remained firm and expectation. “It’s not as bad as I think it is!”

“Ah, it’s lovely to hear you say that, _miliy moi_.”

“It’s my speech, Viktor.” Yuuri poked his notecards into Viktor’s face.

“Your speech?” There were at least ten cards in Yuuri’s hand. Huh. “You do know that this is not—unless you have a big surprise for me, we won’t be exchanging vows.”

“No, it’s the speech telling people we’re together.”

Suppressing a laugh, Viktor sunk onto one of the loveseats. “You don’t just want to slip it into the conversation?” He gave the spot beside him a pat, but Yuuri paced the floor instead.

“You can’t just slip that into conversation!”

“Why not? ‘Oh, by the way, things have developed between Yuuri and I.’ What else do you need?”

“First of all, _developed_ is a strange way to put it. And—and they’re your friends, too. Would _you_ be satisfied with that?”

Viktor frowned. He had sort of—forgotten that he and Yuuri’s new relationship would look to his friends how their new relationships looked to him. That is, details would be necessary. “You’re right,” he admitted. “They’ll want to know how it happened. Minus the fun bits.” Viktor lowered his voice, still a bit annoyed about this part: “Because you won’t let me tell them.” Not that he wouldn’t have a private gab session with Chris about it eventually, but he would’ve preferred to dish on their sex life with Yuuri’s permission.

“Hence the notecards. I figured out everything I want to say, just how I want to say it. Kind of. Almost.”

The number of cards in Yuuri’s hand continued to be a concern for Viktor. “I’d guess you need… some editing?”

Yuuri glanced down at the cards. “Do you think so?”

“How long does it run?”

“About ten minutes?”

“Excellent. You have two.”

Yuuri groaned and sunk onto the couch beside Viktor. Just then, the doorbell rang—likely the pastry chef arriving, or a delivery of dry cleaning. Viktor squeezed Yuuri’s hand as he got to his feet. “It’s no bother. We’ll fix it right up—we’ve got plenty of time before the guests get here. Let me take care of this first.”

He left Yuuri pouting and went to throw open the front door, fully expecting to see a cart of flawless dark chocolate souffles with raspberry coulis, or at the very least his Burberry three-piece in the charcoal check, perfectly pressed.

Instead he got Jean-Jacques Leroy. He was not a dessert or an item of high-end clothing, so needless to say, Viktor was shocked, if not disappointed.

“What do _you_ want?” was the first thing out of Viktor’s mouth, but in his defense, he hadn’t seen J.J. in months apart from the occasional awkward, no-eye-contact passing in the lobby, because they had to endure being neighbors. (To think, soon Leroy would be his neighbor and Yuuri wouldn’t—providing he didn’t go to Japan with Yuuri. And he _wanted_ to go to Japan with Yuuri, he really did—but anyway. Later, on that subject!) As Viktor had promised after the debacle with Chris, he’d made sure Leroy wasn’t invited to any party attended by Viktor and his friends, but Viktor had been attending fewer and fewer parties lately and didn’t know if his influence was felt like it once had been.

If Viktor didn’t know better, he might have described Leroy’s demeanor as he stood there at the door as… modest. He hung his head slightly. But Leroy, modest? Did that happen? “I guess I deserve that.”

“Well, sorry. I suppose. I don’t know that I _am_ sorry.” It occurred to him that if Yuuri overheard this conversation and got pulled into it, he’d only devolve further into his anxiety. So Viktor stepped into the hall with Leroy and pulled the door shut. “Why are you here?”

Leroy reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. “I came to bring you this.” He handed the envelope to Viktor, who raised an eyebrow. When he slid the contents free, three words popped out: _Save the Date_. “It’s an invitation to Isabella and I’s wedding.”

“Oh,” said Viktor softly. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it was… not this.

“I know I was shitty.”

Viktor glanced up. This was a forceful, sudden declaration on Leroy’s part. His face screwed up unattractively.

“This is a—a gesture of good will!” He gave Viktor’s upper arm a little slap. Viktor’s lip curled slightly. “It goes to you, and to Yuuri, obviously. And if you could… if you could tell Christophe he’s invited too, that’d be great.”

Viktor and Leroy had seen Chris about the same amount in the last two months, but there was no way Leroy could know this, and Viktor did not care to explain it to him. “All right,” he said simply, instead, and flashed Leroy a shaky but not totally dishonest smile. “I’ll pass that along.”

“Thank you.” Viktor waited to see if he had anything else to say, and the pressure of Viktor’s gaze must’ve aged Leroy a year. “Ah, I’ll, uh—head on back to my apartment now! Got a mickey and a DVD of _Real Housewives_ with my name on it.”

Viktor did not understand several of the terms in that sentence but nevertheless asked, “Is Isabella not with you tonight?”

“Nah. Visiting her parents. Just J.J. tonight.” He turned and started down the hall, a slump in his shoulders that was nothing short of pathetic. _God. Why am I going to do what I’m going to do?_ Viktor thought.

“I’m having a dinner party.”

Leroy paused. Glanced back over his shoulder.

“Tonight at seven. You could join if you like. Christophe will be there.” Viktor tapped the Save-the-Date. “I think the gesture of good will might mean more if you extended it in person.”

Quiet fear glinted in Leroy’s eyes, which Viktor understood on a deep level. The emotional labor of a big apology like that—for a proud, not especially emotional man, it was daunting. But it had to be done. “Okay. Maybe I will.” So Christophe might be getting not one but two apologies this evening.

Viktor gave Leroy a last little smile and went back inside. Yuuri hadn’t moved from the couch, but Makkachin had joined him, and his face was buried in the dog’s soft fur.

“Make any progress?” Viktor asked. Makkachin leapt down to make room for him on the loveseat, then curled up between his masters’ feet.

“No. I’m useless. Who was at the door?”

An vacant grin spread over Viktor’s face. He’d hoped Yuuri wouldn’t ask. “Well.”

Yuuri saw right through him, he always did. “Oh, god,” he said, dread seeping into his voice. “Who was it?”

“It was Jean-Jacques Leroy.” Viktor tossed the Save-the-Date into Yuuri’s lap. “Inviting us to his wedding.”

“Wow? That’s kind of… nice of him?”

“He’s trying.” And here was the bit Viktor didn’t exactly want to share. “It only seemed fair that I invite him to join us tonight.” Viktor continued to smile vacantly, hoping that might assuage some of the damage.

Yuuri took a deep breath and shut his eyes. “Viktor, Chris is going to be there. And you’re trying to make it up to him, not… aggravate his old wounds!”

“Leroy seems like he feels actual remorse for what he did. _Finally._ ” One of Yuuri’s eyes popped open. Aha! He might be swayed. “He asked me to invite Christophe to the wedding as a good will gesture, and I said it would mean more if he did it in person. Also, I don’t think Leroy has any friends? And I mean… _no_ friends.”

Yuuri sat back and looked Viktor up and down, lip in his teeth. “Viktor.” Viktor tensed at the too-calm use of his name. “I think you did the right thing.”

“You do?” He cleared his throat. “I mean, of course it was the right thing to do—so obvious—but I’m delighted you agree.”

“I just hope Chris doesn’t get overloaded with all these men on their knees groveling for his forgiveness.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s quite used to men on their knees.”

Yuuri laughed boisterously, then clamped a hand over his mouth, going red. Affection swelled in Viktor, for there was nothing quite as cute as Yuuri blushing and laughing, and he chuckled in kind and leaned over to peck Yuuri’s cheek.

“I love when you laugh at dirty jokes.”

“You’re supposed to be helping me with my speech,” Yuuri whined, shoving him away, but not too hard.

“Right. Your speech!” Viktor settled in to read the notecards over Yuuri’s shoulder. “This’ll be fun. It’s almost like I’m your coach!”

 

 

 

 

To Viktor’s chagrin, he lost track of Chris about forty-five minutes into the party.

How does one lose track of a person at a party consisting of only twenty people, you wonder? He’d had his eye on his estranged friend for most of the evening, contemplating how to pull him aside so that they might have their private conversation, and then he’d stepped into the kitchen to refill his glass of wine, and when he returned to the parlor, Chris had vanished. It was hard to say why he’d slipped out, but it might’ve had something to do with the arrival of Leroy—who greeted everyone politely and made small talk with Phichit. But who was still, ultimately, himself. And that was enough for Chris.

Viktor sidled up to Yuuri, who was listening to Leo and Ji chat about something or other. “Christophe didn’t leave, did he?”

“No… I’m sure he would’ve said something to you or me if he were leaving?”

“Mm. I wanted to talk to him before you—you know.” Viktor motioned to the breast of Yuuri’s jacket, where he knew the (heavily revised!) notecards were stashed.

Yuuri gave him a reassuring smile. “Maybe he’s gone to the toilet. I’m sure he’ll show up.”

But Viktor wasn’t convinced. He left Yuuri to his conversation and went creeping through the corridors of his own home, searching for his friend. It was a psychic instinct that drew him to the guest room that Chris had often occupied when he stayed at the penthouse—the Romantics room. A mesh of soft florals and dark woods.

He found the door ajar, and heard a rustling sound.

“Christophe?”

Chris’s head popped up over the other side of the bed. “Ah… Viktor. I stashed something under here and wanted to see if anyone had moved it.”

Viktor struggled not to laugh when he nodded. Chris got to his feet, dusting the knees of his trousers. “Not enjoying the party?”

“No! No. It’s not that. I simply remembered this thing. That I stashed. I got it at a little, ah, _specialty_ boutique in Vienna. Can’t find a replacement.” Viktor’s ability to see straight through Chris’s pretending had not waned with their time apart.

“Do I want to know what it was?” he asked, taking a seat on the end of the bed.

“ _Mais non, mon ami_ ,” Chris laughed. Viktor allowed himself to smile in answer.

“ _Christophe, je voudrais parler avec toi de… quelque chose_. _Quelque chose que j’aurais_ _dû te le dire avant._ ”

“ _D’accord_ ,” said Chris, but he did not sit. 

Viktor folded his hands on his lap. “ _Je suis desolée pour… comment je me suis comporté dans le jardin, en janvier. C’était inacceptable. Tu es mon ami, et tu avais raison._ ”

“ _J’avais raison?_ ” A smirk tugged at Chris’s lips. “ _Viktor, parce que tu es mon ami, je dit ton accent—c’est terrible. S’il te plaît, tu devrais parler anglais._ _Je déteste le bruit de ma langue sur tes lèvres russe._ ”

Viktor snorted in offense. “Fine! But I thought it was a nice gesture to apologize to you in your language.”

Finally, and to Viktor’s strange relief, Chris took a seat on the end of the bed with Viktor. It seemed like a signed that he’d relaxed, if only a little. Just enough for Viktor’s message to sink in. “What do you mean,” Chris began, “when you say I was right?”

“How I felt about Yuuri.”

Chris’s eyes went round. “Really?”

“Yes. I’m in love with him.”

Viktor said it rather lightly, because he’d repeated the phrase nothing short of fifty times in the past few weeks. It was like a catchy song: you heard it once, and then you wanted to play it again and again. But this was Chris’s first time hearing Viktor play that particular tune, and it affected him in kind—he sat back, mouth hanging open, rather shocked. “You are?”

“Oh yes.”

“That’s… congratulations for figuring it out, I suppose.”

“Thank you.” Viktor sensed, in the pause that followed, Chris hesitating at what to say next. Was Viktor to be pitied, now? Because Chris didn’t know the other half of the story. Viktor cleared his throat. “It was also quite gratifying to find out that Yuuri feels the same way.”

Chris’s mouth popped open. “You’re kidding!”

“I’m not. We’ve been dating for two weeks.” 

Chris let out a tremendous gasp and slid part way off the bed. “And you didn’t tell me _immediately_?”

“We haven’t spoken in months?”

“ _Et alors_ , this is bigger than that!” 

“Well, it wouldn’t have happened if not for you. It was arguing with you that… forced my realization.”

Chris climbed back onto the bed, stretching out this time, genuinely comfortable. Things were eking back toward normal. A knot in Viktor’s chest went slack; Chris was no good at holding grudges. “So my pairing of Phichit and Yuuri wasn’t successful after all?”

“No—but they _are_ a good pair, aren’t they? Platonic, yes, but that’s equally important.”

Chris thought about this for a moment, then gave Viktor a smile, which Viktor returned warmly. Then Viktor remembered that—other thing. Other person. Was he more person or more thing? Did it matter? “By the way. I didn’t know I was inviting Leroy until this afternoon, otherwise I would’ve had Yuuri…”

Chris waved it off. “It’s no problem. I’m quite over it.”

“Are you really?” Viktor struggled to find the usual note of sadness under Chris’s dismissal, the little clue that told him Chris had more within him than met the eye. But could he really be— _over it_ , as he said?

“Yes! I’ve started seeing this man—I met him at Yuuri’s party.” Chris smirked to himself. “He has the two Hs—hairy and—”

“I can guess!” If they went down that conversational avenue, he’d never get to make his point. “Leroy indicated that he might want a moment alone with you. To make an apology.” 

“Oh.” Chris blinked. “When?”

“I could go get him right now.”

Chris glanced at the door. _Am I pressuring him?_ Viktor wondered. He’d done that so often with Chris, and he didn’t want to backpedal. Now they’d be starting over. Things would be different.

“Okay,” said Chris finally, with a shrug. “Go and get him.”

Viktor smiled on his way out. He scurried back toward the parlor, where he could hear Yuuri had started to play the grand. It made a decent distraction while Viktor edged around the back of the room, and up to Leroy, whispering directions to Chris’s room and wishing him luck. As Leroy left, Viktor caught Yuuri’s eye over the top of the piano, and winked.

Viktor found himself standing next to Phichit for the remainder of Yuuri’s performance. And that made him feel… ah, what was the word? Oh, right. _Guilty._

Not because he felt he had robbed Phichit of Yuuri—their friendship was stronger than ever, Yuuri had said so himself—or even for falsely casting him as the third point in Otabek and Yuri’s love triangle. (The two of them were seated near Yakov, trying to play off their hand-holding as subtle, which it wasn’t.) No, Viktor felt guilty primarily for the grudge he’d held against Phichit in his head for years. For maligning him as some kind of obstacle to a person he hadn’t even accepted he wanted. It was not fair, and he knew Phichit to be kind and friendly and important to Yuuri. He needed to shake off whatever remained of that misconception.

And it began with a simple greeting. A conversation between the two of them. When was the last time he’d spoken to Phichit, one-on-one? Six months, maybe? It could’ve been longer.

He side-stepped toward Phichit, and said quietly, so as not to disturb Yuuri’s playing, “How are you?”

Phichit started at the sound of his voice. He had a cocktail in hand, sort of greenish. An appletini? “Viktor. Hello.”

“Sorry to startle you.”

“It’s all right! It’s a great party.”

“That means a lot, coming from the King of Parties.”

Phichit laughed a musical little laugh. “That’s very flattering! I try.” He downed the entirety of his appletini in two gulps. “I feel like it’s been forever since we talked, don’t you?”

“You’re always here in spirit,” said Viktor, with a nervous laugh.

“True. People love to talk about me when I’m not there.” _He knows?_ Phichit wore his perfect white smile and said this as though it were nothing, or even a point of pride. “It’s part of my brand. Speaking of which, don’t let me forget to send you a comp of my new fragrance! I want to launch an entire line.”

Suddenly Viktor ceased feeling that Phichit was so innocent, but oddly, it only made him like the man more.

Yuuri finished his song, and the room broke into applause. He stood and gave them a little bow, then motioned for quiet. “Um, while I have your attention, and before we go into the dining room…” He caught Viktor’s gaze across the room. “Do you want to—can you come up here with me?”

Viktor picked his way through their audience, and joined Yuuri by the piano. He had spoken before crowds a hundred times this size, hosting various events and whatnot, but he’d never been as nervous as he felt now. His heart threatened to leap from his chest and grow legs and scamper away. Standing there with Yuuri, he faced all their family and friends: Leroy and Chris had returned from their conversation, Yakov half-glowered at them, Yuri full-glowered at them, Phichit smiled and Otabek looked only mildly interested in what was going on. Yuuri fumbled for his notecards.

“Are you going to do a skit?” Phichit asked excitedly, when he saw the cards come out.

“Not—not exactly,” said Yuuri. He glanced at Viktor and swallowed hard. Viktor had offered to do the talking himself, but Yuuri insisted. Implicitly Viktor understood that, after struggling to speak his feelings for so long, this announcement represented a true mountain for him to climb. He wanted the chance to be bold about their relationship. 

Viktor gave him a brief introduction: “We’ve got something we wanted to tell everyone.”

Yuuri took a deep breath, eyes glued to the first notecard. He must’ve been all-too-aware that every person in that room was waiting on him and expecting something big. You didn’t stop a dinner party for small news. Not even medium-sized news, really.

Another deep breath, and Yuuri crumpled the notecards in his hand. 

Viktor grinned. He’d been hoping that would happen.

“Listen, everybody,” said Yuuri, with twice the strength of his normal voice. “I know we said this is a welcome back party, but the truth is that we invited everyone here so we could tell you that we’re dating, and we have been for a few weeks now, and we love each other, because… we’re in love. We love each other because we’re in love.” Yuuri heard how it sounded, but kept going, getting progressively more disjointed. “It’s not even a welcome back party because—I’m moving to Japan and—and so I’m not back. Well, I _am_ back. But only temporarily!”

Silence.

“I’m confused,” said Otabek slowly.

“Should’ve stuck to the cards,” Viktor muttered.

“Are you dating or moving to Japan?” Yuri demanded. 

Yuuri pressed his palms to his face. He was blushing hard. “Both!”

Chris chimed in to ask, “Is _Viktor_ moving to Japan?”

Yuuri and Viktor looked at each other. Viktor could feel Yakov staring at him. “We don’t know yet,” said Yuuri.

Yuri pulled a nasty face. “Are you going to have another dinner party when you find out?”

“No,” Viktor snapped, and stuck his tongue out at his brother. 

Phichit hopped over several people and in front of Viktor and Yuuri. “I think you’re all missing the point! Look at them!” He put out his arms to frame the newly minted couple, and nearly slapped Yuuri in the face. “Sorry! But, see, Viktor and Yuuri are _in love_.”

“Everyone already knew that,” said Yuri disdainfully. “I don’t even like being around either of them and it was still pathetically obvious.” Nods and murmurs of agreement circled the room.

“Then we should wish them congratulations for realizing what we knew all along!” Phichit declared. “Congratulations on figuring it out! You did it!” He had the strength of personality necessary to rally a crowd, so when he began to clap, even stubborn Yuri followed suit.

Yuuri’s dismay at the unexpected response finally broke, and he started to laugh under his breath, cheeks bright red. Viktor looped an arm around his waist and pulled him into a kiss—someone, presumably Chris, let out a long slick wolf whistle.

Dinner was announced not a minute after the clapping had died down, and the now-jolly group began filtering into the dining room. Viktor lagged behind, alleviating Otabek of the responsibility for Yakov’s chair.

He leaned forward to speak to his uncle. “I’m sorry we hid it from you.”

Yakov did not answer right away, which set Viktor’s stomach to churning. Then, “You would only do such a thing if it meant a great deal to you, correct? Deceiving your old uncle like that?”

Viktor brought his uncle’s chair to a stop, and waited until everyone had gone on, so they were alone. “I didn’t think of it as—deception, exactly. But it _is_ important to me.” He crouched to Yakov’s eye level. “I don’t think anything has ever been so important.”

“Then why do you hesitate? Go to Japan.”

Viktor shut his eyes briefly. “Uncle—”

“I am _old_ , Vitya. Too old to move across the world. I know you feel a debt to me for rescuing you from your mother, but I will not allow the young life I saved to waste away for my sake.” 

“Caring for you isn’t a waste!”

“Lilia is the one who cares for me. You know this.”

“It’s different, though, with family…”

“Will you be any less my nephew in Japan?”

“You like Lilia a lot, don’t you?” Viktor asked, smiling, because he didn’t know how else to answer. Funny that his uncle’s permission should leave him feeling so burdened, but he knew happiness would set in eventually. Only, he had to experience a moment of grief beforehand. Life often worked that way.

“She is… a strong woman,” Yakov grunted. “Not _now_ , Vitya. I am hungry.”

Viktor laughed, and wheeled him into the dining room. Over dinner, Viktor and Yuuri meandered through the story of how they came to be together, and gradually the burden of grief lifted from Viktor’s shoulders, leaving him wine-drunk and breathless with joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to leave the french untranslated, but this is what it says, approximately:
> 
> Chris: You really don't, my friend! (about the thing Chris lost, which is a sex toy)  
> Viktor: Christophe, I would like to talk to you about... something. Something I should have said before.  
> Chris: Okay.  
> Viktor: I'm sorry for... how I behaved in the garden in January. It was unacceptable. You're my friend, and you were right.  
> Chris: I was right? Viktor, because you're my friend, I'm saying your accent—it's terrible. Please speak English. I hate the sound of my language on your Russian lips.


	10. pleasure and privilege

During dinner, Viktor didn’t mention what Yakov had told him. He kept it wrapped under a satisfied smile all through the meal and the rounds of drinks that followed, until Lilia came in to bring Yakov to bed, and Otabek murmured to Yuri that he was sleepy, and slowly the party fizzled into hugs and goodbyes. At midnight, Viktor sent the remaining staff home. They’d finish cleaning up tomorrow.

He went into the parlor and found Yuuri staring out the window, perfectly poised for Viktor to sneak up and wrap around him, pressing into his back. Yuuri squeaked but just as quickly leaned back, letting out a contented sigh. Viktor kissed his neck, and murmured, “I have a gift for you.”

“How many times do I have to tell you what an awful come-on that is?”

Viktor chuckled. “I would love to hear you scold me again, but it isn’t a come-on.” He nudged Yuuri to turn around, so they could face one another while they spoke, but as soon as they did Yuuri put his arms around Viktor’s neck and melted into his chest.

“Viktor, I’m _tired_ ,” Yuuri said, in that sleepy whine of his.

“Do you want to know what it is or not?”

With great effort, Yuuri pulled himself off of Viktor’s chest and squinted into his eyes. Viktor winked. The gloss of tired over Yuuri’s face was cute, puppyish. “I want to know, yes,” he sighed.

“I’m coming to Japan with you.”

Through the gloss, Yuuri’s lips parted. He peered up at Viktor like that, not quite believing. “Really?”

“Of course really. Yakov didn’t even need time to think about it. He told me to go.”

As the news set in—and oh, did it set in—Yuuri’s breathing came in crazed huffs, nearly wheezes, and he stumbled. Viktor caught him by his arms, then found himself staggering as Yuuri hugged him, tight enough to pinch his lungs. But he couldn’t care with Yuuri’s face buried in the front of his shirt, his narrow shoulders shaking; Viktor hugged him back. Seconds went by and Yuuri loosened the embrace but did not let go. Viktor pressed his cheek against the side of Yuuri’s head. Smelled the shampoo he knew well by now.

There was a wet noise, and Yuuri’s shoulders convulsed. “You’re crying,” Viktor realized, dismayed. “Oh, why are you crying?”

Yuuri said something, but refused to remove his face from Viktor’s shirt, so he heard: “ _Imv dnmd ffbh hhddd.”_

“Will you look at me, love?”

Yuuri shifted away just enough to talk, but kept his head down. His words were muddied by snot and tears. “No, I don’t want you to look at me—can you just look somewhere else, please?”

Viktor swallowed his complaints, his speech about how a little mucus couldn’t scare him, his recollection of caring for Yuuri when he’d had a nasty stomach flu. He fixed his eyes on the night outside the window. “Are you not happy? I thought this was what you wanted.”

“It is, I’m—that’s why I’m crying.” Yuuri took a deep, halting breath. “I’ve wanted… this, all of this, _you_ , so much, for so long. I thought it would never happen. I gave up. And now…” Another sob rocked him. “I don’t know, I don’t know why I’m crying—I’ve cried over you so many times my body just… it cries…”

That was all Viktor could take of staring out the window. “For God’s sake.” He tugged Yuuri’s head up by the chin and kissed his snotty, tear-slicked lips, clinging to him. Yuuri threw arms around his neck, and they hugged again, until an impulsive desire seized Viktor, and he lifted Yuuri by the waist and spun him.

“ _Ah!_ ” But Yuuri’s concerned yelping was better than his helpless sobbing.

“I can do nothing to fix my past mistakes except tell you, vehemently, how much I love you,” Viktor announced, as he returned a dizzied Yuuri to the ground. “Do you want to hear?”

Yuuri wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. “Viktor, you don’t have to—”

“How should I do it? In verse?”

“Oh, _no_ —”

“ _How do I love thee? Let me count the ways._ ”

“Viktor.” Yuuri was laughing. “Please.”

“ _I love thee to depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach—_ ”

“Viktor!”

“Is Browning too trite? Not to your taste? Hmm, all right.” Viktor slung an arm around his waist and pulled him to the sofa, where they collapsed together with a great _oomph_. “ _Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art…_ That’s worse. Oh, I know— _Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art_ — _not in lone splendour hung aloft the night_ —”

“Are you going to keep going?” Yuuri murmured, head lolling sleepily against Viktor’s shoulder.

“I have one more! You don’t know it.”

“Okay…”

Viktor’s voice slipped into a whisper. “ _Music I heard with you was more than music._ ” He listened to the shallow rhythm of Yuuri’s breathing, felt the warmth of Yuuri’s weight, noted the meandering of Yuuri’s fingers along his chest. “ _And bread that I broke with you was more than bread._ ”

For a moment they were only quiet. The lines settled in the air above them.

“I like that one,” Yuuri mumbled.

“Me too.” With exacting care, Viktor brushed the hair from Yuuri’s temple and kissed it. “I do love you. Enormously. Ridiculously, in fact.”

“I know.”

“You know it, but I want you to believe it.” Yuuri looked up into his face, and Viktor met him with a broad smile. “So I’ll wake up every morning and remind you.”

“I don’t want you to have to do that,” Yuuri sighed, beating his head against Viktor’s arm.

“It’s my pleasure. And my privilege.”

This time when Yuuri lifted his head, his mouth had gone thin with determination. He leaned forward and kissed Viktor on the lips, closed-mouth, but lingering. When he pulled away, he said, still in disbelief, but as though the beauty of it were slowly dawning on him, “We’re moving to Japan together.”

“We are.” Viktor grinned. “We have so much to discuss.”

“Mmmhmm,” said Yuuri, lacing his fingers with Viktor’s and getting to his feet. It was an answer that led one to believe he hadn’t actually heard the words that came out of Viktor’s mouth—his mind was somewhere else. “But first.” And he gave Viktor a very, very deliberate look.

“Wow!” Viktor stood, and let himself be dragged out of the parlor. “I thought you were tired.”

“You woke me up. You said you’re coming with me.”

Viktor laughed loud enough that Yakov would complain about it over breakfast the next morning. “Yuuri, I love when you _make_ dirty jokes.”

 

 

 

 

Viktor knew he owned a very large amount of things, larger than perhaps any one man should own. He was well aware of this, yet in the process of packing up his possessions in order to have them shipped to Japan, he’d begun to understand for the first time just how vast and unwieldly the excess was when you laid it all out together.

“I think perhaps I need to… donate a few items.”

“I found three more things I want,” Chris called from Viktor’s closet. “Should I just make a pile of them?”

“Set them aside, but for the love of Hèrmes, don’t make a _pile_.”

Chris made a noise that could be interpreted in a number of ways, a task Viktor didn’t have time for when he was knee-deep in three suitcases, portable clothes racks boxing him in on every side. “This is not going to work,” Viktor sighed, looking around him. “My closet at the new house is barely a walk-in.”

“Yes, tell me about the new house,” Chris chirped, returning to the main bedroom with one of Viktor’s silk robes draped over his clothes.

“I suppose you’re taking that too?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Viktor shook out a linen shirt. “The new house is six bedrooms, overlooking the bay, with a private outdoor bath—this is something they do in Japan, according to Yuuri. I’m quite excited to try it.” He smiled to himself. “Of course, I had to get it fully renovated first. But I’ve paid the crew a small fortune to get it done by the time we arrive.” Viktor had survived many hardships, but outdated tiling was not one.

“It sounds perfect,” Chris simpered, carving a spot for himself amongst the ties and cravats and cashmere scarves arranged on Viktor’s bed.

“It _is_ perfect. Uncannily perfect.” Viktor frowned. “In fact, I’ve started waiting for things to go wrong.”

“Ah, relax. You suffered for a few months, perhaps the worst of it is over.”

“Perhaps.”

“You’re going on a massive adventure.”

“I am…”

“With a very sexy man.”

“He is.”

“You’ve planned every detail!”

“I suppose?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

The question floored Viktor. Literally—he sunk to his knees. What _was_ the worst that could happen? He was only… moving to a different country… with a completely different language… where he had only a handful of friends… and would live far from any major city. “I could be miserable.” The thought came out in a wisp.

“But Yuuri will be there!”

“Oh.” Viktor smiled. Yuuri always made him smile. “That’s true.”

“I meant to ask, do you feel at all strange about moving in with someone you’ve only dated for a few months?” Viktor shot Chris a horrified look, and he tapped a finger against his lips. “That was not a great question to ask, was it?”

“ _No._ But I’m quite confident about living with Yuuri. We’ve been living together here since he got back, and I already know all of his bad habits.”

 _“Oo_ , what are they?”

Viktor decided he didn’t much like the linen shirt he’d been fussing over for the past few minutes, and tossed it aside. He only wore, what, a third of these things? Many of them were gifts and not to his taste. “I really ought to donate some of this to charity or something. Send it to Oxfam.”

Chris glanced around himself. He shrugged. “There must be at least fifty thousand pounds in clothes here. You might as well auction it off.”

“A charity auction,” Viktor gasped. “That’s a fantastic idea.”

“Can I be the charity?”

“Absolutely not. I doubt I’ll have time to do it before I go, but I’ll—I’ll have the arrangements made. And then I can take only what I truly like.” Viktor got back to his feet and immediately began to reorganize. “Come on, Chris. Help me get these racks to a spare room.”

When Yuuri arrived home from the office that evening, Chris had left—having shopped the closet to his limit and gotten bored of watching Viktor scrutinize ascots—and Yuuri struggled to find his future housemate in one of the guest rooms, amidst a sea of clothes, shoes, hats, coats, bags, and various accessories.

“Viktor?”

Viktor struggled out from behind a rack of unwanted suits. “Yuuri. Darling. Welcome home.”

“What… are you doing?”

And Viktor was excited to tell him: “I’m auctioning off my clothes for charity.”

Yuuri took a long look around the room. “ _All_ your clothes?”

“About eighty percent!”

Viktor weaved through the mess to join Yuuri at the door—he’d been at this for many hours now, he needed a meal and a very full glass of wine. It was the longest work day he could remember having in… well, maybe not his _entire_ life, but close enough.

He kissed Yuuri’s cheek. “Come into the parlor and have a drink with me.” But when Viktor tugged at Yuuri’s arm, he didn’t budge. He was frowning at the clothes, doing that deeply-troubled face of his. Viktor bit his lip. “What’s the matter?”

“I just…” Yuuri shook his head. “You _love_ your clothes, Viktor.”

Viktor did love his clothes, and clothes in general, and nice items in general. Or at least, he always had. But glancing at the things he’d picked to send away, he didn’t feel any real sense of loss. “A person can only wear so many things.” He shrugged. “I kept what I love and wear often.”

“How did you… _why_?”

“I don’t know. I was packing for the move and I realized how much there was that I didn’t care about.” The excess had lost some of its meaning. Why _was_ that? Though he didn’t mind it—he’d entered a lighter state of being. It felt good.

Yuuri was biting back a smile. “I’ve been making fun of the size of your closet for as long as I’ve known you.”

Viktor folded his arms across his chest. “Are you saying you don’t want me to give them away?”

“No. I think it’s great. But only if it’s what you really want to do.”

“It is!”

Yuuri reached between them and took Viktor’s hand with a gentleness that caught Viktor off-guard. He gave it a squeeze, and for a moment Viktor’s heart stalled. One had to wonder if that would continue to happen on occasion when Yuuri touched him, or said his name, or looked at him like he was right now—or if this was the honeymoon phase, still, after several months. Or if he’d be on a honeymoon for the rest of his life. They were moving to a house on the beach, after all.

Then Yuuri said, “I’d still love you even if you had a million pointless pairs of shoes.”

Pouting viciously, Viktor shoved his hand away and flitted out of the bedroom, and slowly Yuuri followed, laughing to himself.

 

 

 

 

Viktor’s closet purge was not his only strange act in the weeks before the move. In lieu of a goodbye party, he opted to invite each of his friends over a private dinner, sometimes with Yuuri, sometimes without. So he went out not with a bang but with quiet conversations, good laughs, strong drinks, opera on the record player. “You talk about this as if you’ll never see them again,” Yakov commented, scoffing at his efforts. Viktor couldn’t disagree.

He knew his friends’ promises to call and visit were well-meant, but they’d be forgotten in a few months, a continent away. Perhaps this was not the _last_ time he’d see everyone, perhaps a few would make it over, perhaps the ones who didn’t come he’d cross paths with again in ten or twenty years. He couldn’t say he was happy about it, but he knew the decision he’d made—to be with Yuuri, in this far-off place—meant starting over. He shook hands with the twenty years of life led in London. A respectful parting, but a parting nonetheless.

The majority of his goodbye dinners were bittersweet in some way. He and Chris visited a rooftop bar and sat looking out at the cityscape, musing about how it’d been almost a year since Phichit introduced them at that end-of-summer party on the Thames. Phichit himself took Viktor and Yuuri out for a night of theatre and the best Thai food in London.

Viktor saved the hardest of the dinners for last, a mere twenty-four hours before he and Yuuri had to leave for the airport. Their plane would depart at ten in the evening for a red-eye to Tokyo, where they’d land, refuel, then fly to Kyushu, and complete a two-hour drive to the coast for the last leg of the journey, resulting in a total of twenty hours travel time. Yuuri had picked out movies for them to watch, and Viktor had a small library of grant requests to review for the new foundation, as well as a Japanese phrasebook to study. They’d filled out all sorts of paperwork for Makkachin to be able to enter the country, though it hadn’t stopped him from settling into every suitcase he came across, and looking on with terror whenever Viktor pulled on his shoes.

“Uncle, I need you to sign the contract, not stare at it. Yuri and Otabek will be here any minute.”

Yakov, sitting at his card table like always, flipped another page in the dossier. He’d been frowning at it for over an hour, now. “I’m beginning to doubt the offer.”

Viktor considered pulling his hair out, but he knew he hadn’t much to spare. Instead, he took out the energy pacing the parlor floor. “ _You_ are the one who told me you didn’t want to stay in the penthouse by yourself. Don’t you like your new place?”

Yakov made a series of unpleasant throaty sounds and nodded. He’d been living at the new flat for a week—a two-bedroom, just big enough for he and Lilia, nothing fancy. Viktor had pushed the purchase along so as to have his uncle settled before he and Yuuri left. The only remaining difficulty was getting Yakov to sign off on the sale of the Bedfords Walk penthouse, which was in his name.

Tonight would be the most difficult goodbye, because this dinner was not just for Yuri and Otabek, but for the apartment itself.

Gradually the furnishings had dwindled—shipped to Japan, or to Yakov’s, or sold. Whatever remained would be included in the price of sale. Watching paintings and tables disappear one after the other had made Viktor feel as though the place were slowly bleeding out, vanishing before his eyes. He’d be glad to get to the house in Japan and see some of them again, to feel settled. Even this evening, sitting in the parlor with his uncle, like he had—what, a thousand times?—he could look around and see the holes. He was living in the shell of what had once been his home.

Yakov roughly set down the pen, shaking his head. “I cannot. This is the place where you and Mila grew up, we cannot sell it.”

Viktor took a deep breath. “How long will you let it sit empty?”

His uncle gave him a look, and lifted the pen again. “I don’t trust this American buyer.”

“He has three Oscars!”

“Why should that make me trust him?”

That was fair enough; Viktor laughed. “Think of it as granting the apartment a second life. So it can be to someone else what it was to us.” He knew saying this was as much for his own comfort as his uncle’s. It helped, a little.

Yakov sighed and signed the document. “Is that it?”

“Oh, no. You have to sign in twelve other places—I marked them with pink stickies.”

“Damn it, Vitya!”

The doorbell rang and Viktor went to answer it, but was beaten to the foyer by Yuuri, who slid down the hall in his socks from the library. “I’ve got it,” he said, and opened the door to usher Yuri and Otabek inside.

Yuri wasn’t capable of participating in a genuinely _sappy_ farewell dinner, and the conversation over their meal felt normal enough Viktor briefly forgot what the evening represented. He and Yuri went back and forth in their usual way; Yuri delivered a backhanded compliment to Yuuri and Yuuri laughed it off. Otabek (who arrived in a leather jacket over a tee-shirt and jeans rather than the suits he usually wore) mentioned he’d started moonlighting as a DJ in his now ample free time, and subsequently had to explain DJing to Yakov, prompting Viktor and Yuuri to exchange the _we are so talking about this later_ look across the table.

Not long after they’d finished eating, Lilia arrived to take Yakov home. Viktor planned to visit him once more before the flight, but he made sure to bend down and kiss his cheek anyway, fighting tears. When the four of them went into the parlor to drink and talk, Viktor forced Yuuri to sit beside him on the sofa, and put his head on his shoulder.

Perhaps Yuri and Otabek could sense how the mood had shifted. Otabek didn’t say anything, he wouldn’t. That wasn’t his way. But Yuri, slouching in an armchair, watched his brother with narrow eyes and said, “I just moved here and you’re already leaving.”

“I’m sorry, Yuri.” It was all Viktor could think to say. He sounded tired.

“I know you’re sorry. It just sucks, is all.”

“I already got you a ticket to come visit.”

“So what? It’s not the same.”

Viktor had to smile at how genuine Yuri’s annoyance felt. He looked up at Yuuri. “He’s going to miss me.”

“Don’t tease him,” Yuuri said, but he was smiling.

Yuri made a retching noise. Otabek turned to him and said, “But you _are_ going to miss him. You told me that two hours ago.” At this point Yuri started hissing and Viktor dissolved into laughter. The rest of the night vanished into hysteria, hijinks, storytelling—a fitting final evening in the place where Viktor had come to love those things.

 

 

 

 

The air smelled of salt water.

It stung Viktor’s nostrils, stirring him from sleep. His eyes felt glued shut. He struggled to open them, to wince at the beam of sunlight streaking across the pillows.

“Yuuri, close the blinds.”

Yuuri didn’t answer his whine. Viktor rubbed his eyes, and reached for the other side of the bed, but his arms closed around nothing. Startled awake, he sat up, looking around. He was alone in the bed, in the room. The clock showed one o’clock in the afternoon—fuck. He’d slept twelve hours. No wonder Yuuri had gotten up without him.

Viktor climbed out of bed. He could feel the long journey in the corners of his body, through aches in places he didn’t know could ache. The salt water smell persisted, which was odd—he couldn’t remember smelling the ocean inside the house when they arrived last night.

Shoving his feet into slippers, he wandered out of the bedroom, toward the living and dining room, where the sliding doors to the terrace sat open onto their backyard, a stretch of rocky beach. One could hear the waves crashing rhythmically against the sand a mere hundred yards away from the house.

Yuuri sat out in a chair on the terrace, knees tucked to his chest, book tucked against his knees. He didn’t notice Viktor step outside until he heard a massive yawn.

“You’re awake.” Viktor gestured to say, _sort of_. “Your hair’s a mess right now.”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone,” Viktor murmured, and bent down to kiss him.

“I suppose you don’t want them to know about your morning breath, either?”

Viktor snorted. “Where’s Makkachin?”

Yuuri pointed out beyond the terrace, to the sea, where a brownish blur was charging a crowd of gulls. The birds took off in a storm of flapping wings, Makkachin barking. Then the dog noticed a huge piece of driftwood and set about trying to drag it toward the house.

“That,” Viktor said, “is pure happiness.”

“I agree.” Yuuri marked his place in his book, and set it aside. “Are you hungry? Do you want some coffee or tea?”

“Can I have them out here?” There was a little table and a set of dining chairs set up for that purpose, or so Viktor guessed. He couldn’t remember requesting them from the interior designer, but there they were.

Yuuri smiled to himself, like he knew something Viktor didn’t, which was maddening but a little exciting, too. “Yes. Come in and I’ll show you what I made and we can take it back out here.”

In the kitchen, Viktor sipped tea and watched Yuuri carefully prepare two bowls of food for them. He asked questions about things he’d seen so far that were unfamiliar to him, like one of the appliances (a rice cooker), and the purpose of the room with the mats that had gone untouched during the renovation. Then they loaded the bowls onto a tray and carried them outside.

“Whatever I’m eating is incredible,” Viktor announced, his mouth full.

Yuuri grinned. “It’s katsudon.”

“I _like_ katsudon. Actually, I love it.”

“That’s good.”

“And I love it when you cook for me. It makes me feel pampered.”

“I’m glad,” said Yuuri softly, not looking up from his meal.

Stuffed and satisfied, Viktor sat back in his chair and let out a heavy sigh. Makkachin had returned from adventuring and lay soaking up the sun near their feet. The weather was perfect, the view of the sea was perfect. Up the coast the harbor and town were visible, but only if you squinted, which gave one a sense the house inhabited its own island, its own little universe. In all his travels, Viktor had never experienced quiet of this magnitude.

“What should we do with the rest of our day?” he asked, half to Yuuri, half to the sky. “I need to call Mila and see when she’s planning to come down—sometime this week, I’d wager. And I was thinking I’d like to try the bath this afternoon, and then later walk down the beach into town and get dinner somewhere.”

“We’re going to need to celebrate.”

“That’s right.” Viktor smiled out at the water. “We do need to celebrate.” 

“I mean—I hope we will.”

 _I hope we will._ Viktor frowned. What did _that_ mean? What was there to hope for that they hadn’t already achieved? He glanced sideways at Yuuri, and saw only the top of his head—his chin was to his chest, and his shoulders at his ears. “Are you—what’s wrong, love?”

“Just nervous,” came a squeak of a voice. Nervous—how odd. “Um. Viktor…”

Viktor reached across the table, offering his hand to Yuuri. “Why don’t you try looking up at me?” Yuuri did, and Viktor met him with the kindest smile he could muster, the most honest expression of love and reassurance he could give in a single glance.

Yuuri’s shoulders dropped, though he continued to frown in consternation. He slipped his hand into Viktor’s. “I have something I want to ask you.”

Viktor’s smile twitched. “Go ahead.”

“I don’t even know if it’s…” Yuuri shut his eyes and inhaled. “I don’t know if _ask_ is the right word. I mean, I am asking, if you don’t want to—you can say so. I know we haven’t been together very long.” He opened his eyes. Some of the anxiety had left his face. “But sometimes you just—know.”

“Sometimes you just know,” Viktor agreed, absently stroking Yuuri’s hand.

“And I know.” Yuuri shoved his free hand into his trouser pocket, and pulled out an item small enough that when he clutched it in his palm, Viktor couldn’t tell what it was. “Okay,” Yuuri muttered, clearly steeling himself.

Viktor hid a grin behind his hand. He had a deep appreciation for Yuuri’s fumbling and a love for surprises.

Yuuri unfurled his fingers, and in his palm was a small velvet jewelry box. He set it on the table and slid it toward Viktor.

Incredible, the dearth of meaning tucked into such a small item. Viktor popped it open and ran his thumb over the paired gold bands inside. He was uncertain of his own reaction—he’d grown accustomed to films and books, where a gesture like this one came brimming with expectations. You were meant to cry or scream or shout your answer and embrace your love. But sitting there on the beach, enjoying his first meal with Yuuri in their new home together, he felt much the same way he’d felt when he realized he loved Yuuri. Inevitability woke him like a sunbeam on a pillow. All he could think was, _ah, of course. Why didn’t I think of that?_

He pried one of the bands from the box and then offered it to Yuuri, along with his left hand. Yuuri’s mouth hung open. His lips moved wordlessly, then snapped shut. He took the ring and slid it onto Viktor’s third finger.

Viktor held his hand out toward the sea and admired the sun’s glint off the gold. “What was it you wanted to ask me, _miliy moi_?”

“I think you just answered my question.”

Viktor could only smile at that. He pushed the box back toward Yuuri, who pulled out the second ring and allowed Viktor to slide it onto his third finger.

Yuuri’s cheeks were red. “It’s not legal here, so I don’t know if this means anything.”

Viktor settled back into his seat and shook his head. “Don’t be silly. You know exactly what it means.”

Yuuri let out a tiny laugh, and then another. “Yes. You’re right.”

“Ah, it’s so sexy when you tell me I’m right.”

Yuuri flicked a tiny bit of egg at Viktor and he squealed, shrill enough that Makkachin sat up in alarm.

“Oh, now you’re going to get it,” Viktor declared, springing to his feet. He wrangled Yuuri out of his seat and, with some grunting and tussling, picked him up and threw him over his shoulder.

“You’re going to feel this in your back tomorrow,” Yuuri shouted, and thumped Viktor between his shoulder blades.

“Worth it!”

Viktor carried a wriggling Yuuri down to the ocean, Makkachin running circles around them and yapping excitedly. Viktor kicked off his slippers. “If you go in there, Viktor—shit, _no_ ,” said Yuuri, as Viktor (laughing wildly) marched them both into the water, until he was up to his waist. “If you drop me—”

Viktor dropped him. Yuuri went into the shallows with a squeal and thrashed around for a moment while Viktor laughed. Makkachin splashed near them, hopping over the waves. Yuuri, rivers running off his clothes, clambered to his feet and latched around Viktor’s waisted—he dragged Viktor down into the water with him. They splashed around like that for a while, laughing, spitting salt from their mouths. Viktor pushed wet licks of hair from his eyes, Yuuri had to rescue his glasses from a larger-than-expected wave. Then Viktor pulled them to their feet, and held Yuuri close to him, and kissed him.

Their journey to this beach—the one that started not two days, but many years ago—hadn’t been perfect. It wasn’t a pretty story, not one Viktor would rush to tell the grandchildren when they gathered at his knee. But even imperfect journeys could lead to perfect places, perfect moments. And one was all it took to make the journey worthwhile.

The wedding was very much like other weddings, without the style and extravagance one might have come to expect from the interested parties. But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading. i loved writing this one so much, i don't think i'll be done with viktuuri any time soon, so if you're sad it's over - i'll be back. like the terminator.

**Author's Note:**

> my chapters for this fic will be 5k - 8k words and i expect the final word count to come out between 50 and 60 thousand words. i also expect i'm going to write pretty fast.
> 
> you can follow me on twitter (@plotghosts) if you want to know when updates are coming - i usually mention my progress and estimated arrival times for chapters.


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